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tibtavy  of  Che  Cheotygiccd  Seminary 

PRINCETON  «  NEW  JERSEY 


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PRESENTED  BY 


William  Brent on  Greene,  D.D. 

3SSII 


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1 

FAC-SIMILE  OF  TITLE  PAGE  TYNDALE'S  NEW  TESTAMENT. 


OUR 


Sixty-Six  Sacred  Books: 


HOW  THEY  CAME  TO  US,  AND  WHAT  THEY  ARE. 


A    POPULAR     HAND-BOOK     FOR     COLLEGES,    SUNDAY-SCHOOLS, 
NORMAL    CLASSES    AND   STUDENTS,    ON    THE    ORIGIN,    AU- 
THORSHIP,   PRESERVATION,    CHARACTER   AND    DIVINE 
AUTHORITY    OF    THE    CHRISTIAN    SCRIPTURES. 


By  EDWIN  W.    RICE,   D.  D. 


PHILADELPHIA : 

THE  AMERICAN  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  UNION, 

1122  Chestnut  Street. 

New  York  :  8  &  10  Bible  House. 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE. 


The  members  of  a  Bible  Study  Circle,  composed  of  ad- 
vanced students  and  teachers,  requested  the  author  to  give 
a  series  of  lessons  or  studies  upon  the  origin,  authorship, 
preservation,  character  and  divine  authority  of  the  books 
of  the  Bible.  These  lectures  were  afterward  written  out 
and  issued  in  The  Sunday-School  World.  The  kindly  recep- 
tion given  to  the  studies,  and  the  call  for  them  by  a  wider 
circle  of  Bible  students,  has  led  the  author  to  revise,  en- 
large and  adapt  them  to  more  general  use.  His  hope  is 
that  they  may  lead  to  a  more  intelligent  knowledge  of  our 
sacred  books,  and  a  more  reverent  faith  in  the  Christian 
Scriptures. 

Edwin  W.  Rice. 

Philadelphia,  October,  1891. 


[Copyright,  1891,  by  The  American  Sunday-School  Union.] 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE   ANGLO-AMERICAN   AND    KING   JAMES   VERSIONS. 

Introduction,  i.  The  three  foremost  nations  of  the 
world  in:  (i)  literature  and  learning;  (2)  science  and  dis- 
covery; (3)  commerce  and  wealth,  are  Christian.  They 
are  Great  Britain,  Germany  and  the  United  States  of 
America. 

2.  Ask  these  three  great  nations  for  their  greatest  book 
in  respect  of:(i)  its  circulation  and  popularity;  (2)  its 
influence  on  their  national  life ;  (3)  its  deep  hold  on  the 
heart  of  the  people,  and  they  will  unhesitatingly  and 
unitedly  answer,  The  Bible.1 

3.  The  educated  Mongolian  or  Malayan  is  eager  to  know 
about  this  great  book.  The  inquiring  Asiatic  mind  bristles 
with  questions.  What  kind  of  a  book  is  that  Bible? 
What  is  it  about  ?  How  did  you  get  it  ?  Who  wrote  it  ? 
How  long  ago  was  it  written  ?  For  whom  was  it  made  ? 
Has  everyone  in  Christian  lands  a  copy?  Is  it  found  in 
other  languages  ?  In  how  many  ?  How  was  it  written  ? 
How  preserved  ?  Who  translated  it  into  your  Christian 
tongues?  Why  is' it  not  found  in  all  languages?  Even 
among  Christians,  thoughtful  and  wise,  these  and  a  hundred 

1  Bible  comes  from  the  Greek  Biblia,  plural  of  Bib/ion,  "  little  book," 
a  diminutive  of  Biblos,  "  book."  The  Latin  plural  also,  Biblia,  is  used 
by  Chaucer  in  Canterbury  Tales,  and  by  Wyckliffe  in  the  Preface  to 
his  translation,  and  as  a  title  by  Coverdale. 

(7) 


8  THE   ANGLO-AMERICAN   AND 

other  questions  start  up  demanding  intelligent  answers. 
In  fact,  every  Christian  ought  to  have  some  knowledge  of 
the  history,  the  origin,  contents,  and  purpose  of  the  great- 
est book  in  Christendom.  These  questions  are  worthy  of 
scholarly  and  clear  answers.  Let  us  address  ourselves  to 
them.  We  will  trace  the  history  of  the  book  up  the  stream 
of  time.  Beginning  with  what  is  most  familiar  and  best 
known  we  will  proceed  step  by  step  to  what  is  less  known. 

4.  The  Anglo-American  Version.  The  latest  English 
translation  of  the  Bible  is  the  Anglo-American  or  Re- 
vised Version,  printed  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  Eng- 
land, 1 881-1885.  It  is  known  as  the  Anglo-American  or 
Revised  Version  to  distinguish  it  from  the  Common  Version 
frequently  called  also  the  Authorized  Version,  and  the  King 
James  Version} 

5.  A  revision  of  the  Common  Version  was  suggested  by 
Prof.  Selwyn  in  1856,  but  not  then  approved  by  scholars. 
It  was  again  urged  by  Bishops  Wilberforce,  Ellicott,  Olli- 
vant,  and  others  of  England,  in  1870,  and  a  committee 
of  16  (8  from  each  house)  was  appointed  by  the  Convoca- 
tion of  Canterbury,  with  authority  to  invite  other  eminent 
Biblical  scholars  to  join  them  in  the  revision.2  A  com- 
mittee of  American  scholars  of  all  the  leading  Protestant 
bodies  of  America  (as  in  Great  Britain)  was  formed  in 
1871,  to  co-operate  with  the  British  committees  in  revis- 


1  It  is  called  the  Common  Version  because  it  is  the  English  transla- 
tion now  most  widely  used  by  English-speaking  people ;  the  Author- 
ized Version  because  it  was  supposed  (but  erroneously)  to  have  been 
formally  approved  or  authorized  by  royal   authority,  and  King  James 

Version  because  it  was  made  during  the  reign  of  James  I.,  King  of 
England. 

2  The  Convocation  of  York  declined  to  join  in  the  revision,  but  many 
of  the  greatest  scholars  of  England,  Scotland  and  America  were  en- 
gaged in  the  work. 


KING   JAMES    VERSIONS.  V 

ing  the  Common  Version  of  the  Bible  of  1611.  The  whole 
number  of  scholars  engaged  upon  the  Revised  Version  was 
101,  of  whom  67  were  British,  and  34  American.1 

6.  The  revision  of  the  New  Testament  was  completed  in 
1 88 1  and  issued  May  17  in  England  and  May  20  in  America. 
The  Old  Testament  was  finished  and  the  entire  revised  Bible 
issued  in  May,  1885.  The  issue  of  the  revised  New  Testa- 
ment in  1 88 1  awakened  a  profound  interest  among  all  Eng- 
lish-speaking peoples.  "It  is  the  literary  event  of  this 
century,"  says  Schaff.  Millions  of  copies  were  sold  in  a 
few  months.2  More  than  twenty  reprints  at  once  appeared 
in  the  United  States.  For  once  popular  interest  in  the 
newspapers  was  supplanted  by  that  in  the  revised  Scrip- 
tures.3 The  revised  New  Testament  was  sought  by  crowds 
at  the  bookstores  and  news  stands ;  it  was  hawked  on  the 
streets,  and  read  on  the  cars,  in  the  omnibus  and  in  the 
stage  coach.  The  entire  text  of  the  revised  Testament  was 
telegraphed  to  two  daily  newspapers  in  Chicago  and  printed 
complete  in  morning  editions !  When  the  revised  Old 
Testament  was  completed  four  years  later  the  entire  revised 
Bible  was  issued,  but  its  advent  awakened  comparatively 
little  interest.  Public  curiosity  and  excitement  exhausted 
itself  apparently  upon  the  New  Testament. 

7.  Why  Revise  the  King  James  Version  ? — (1)  To  remove 
obsolete  words  and  phrases,  as  "let"  in  the  sense  of 
"hinder;"  "ear"  meaning  "to  plow;"   "prevent"  in 


1  The  active  members  (in  1879)  were  79,  namely,  British  52,  Amer- 
ican 27.     See  Bible  Revision,  Philadelphia,  pp.  10-12. 

2  Oxford  had  orders  for  a  million  of  copies  before  publication ; 
Cambridge  probably  for  as  many  more.  Two  million  copies  were  sold 
in  London.  Nearly  half  a  million  were  sold  in  New  York  and  Phila- 
delphia, besides  many  American  reprints  published  soon  after  its  com- 
pletion. 

3  See  Schaff,  Companion  to  Greek  Testament,  p.  403  flf. 


10  THE  ANGLO-AMERICAN    AND 

the  sense  of  "going  before;"  "carriages"  meaning 
"  baggage  "  or  "  luggage."  (2)  To  give  the  meaning  of 
the  original  with  greater  precision,  to  keep  step  with  the 
progress  of  knowledge  in  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  of  the 
original  Scriptures.  (3)  To  conform  to  a  purer  text  now 
attained.  More  than  500  valuable  MSS,  a  score  of  An- 
cient Versions,  and  writings  of  100  Christian  Fathers  have 
been  examined  and  collated,  in  order  to  perfect  the  origi- 
nal text  of  Scripture. 

8.  Will  the  Revision  be  Generally  Accepted? — Time  alone 
can  definitely  answer.  It  is  widely  used  with  the  Common 
Version  in  Sunday-school  lesson  helps ;  some  prominent  re- 
ligious journals  use  it  instead  of  the  Common  Version, 
and  eminent  Biblical  scholars  constantly  refer  to  it  in  criti- 
cal works.  It  has  not,  however,  come  into  very  general 
use  among  the  people,  nor  among  the  churches.1 

9 .  Objections  to  the  Revised  Version.  — Three  serious  obsta- 
cles  exist  in  the  popular  mind  to  its  general  introduction : 
(1)  The  omissions  and  changes  in  passages  long  familiar 
and  of  forms  of  expression  deeply  endeared  to  the  Chris- 
tian heart.2  (2)  Printing  the  text  in  paragraphs,  disre- 
garding the  breaks  of  chapter  and  verse.  Although  the 
new  arrangement  is  a  gain  in  getting  the  sense  of  a  passage, 
it  hinders  quick  reference  to  a  desired  clause  or  verse. 

1  The  Baptist  Convention  at  Saratoga,  N.  Y.,  1883,  agreed  to  adopt 
and  circulate  the  Anglo-American  revision  with  the  American  changes 
put  into  the  text,  along  with  the  Bible  Union  Version.  Some  churches 
among  the  Baptists  and  Congregationalists  use  the  Revised  Version, 
and  it  is  occasionally  read  from  the  pulpit  in  a  few  churches  of  other 
denominations. 

2  One  of  the  most  serious  omissions,  to  the  common  reader,  is  the 
doxology  to  the  Lord's  Prayer,  Matt.  6  :  13.  Among  other  changes 
are:  "  Every  Scripture  given  by  inspiration  is  profitable,"  etc.,  2  Tim. 
3:  16;  "Ye  search  the  Scriptures,"  John  5  :  39,  and  numerous  texts 
in  thePsalms  and  Prophets. 


KING   JAMES   VERSIONS.  11 

Marking  the  chapters  and  verses  in  the  margin  does  not 
overcome  this  objection ;  for  the  eye  misses  the  familiar 
breaks  in  the  text  and  does  not  readily  catch  the  verse  or 
clause  desired.  (3)  The  omission  of  chapter  headings  and 
running  head-lines  at  the  top  of  each  page.  To  satisfy 
the  ordinary  reader,  these  must  be  inserted.  He  will  not 
accept  the  excuse  that  their  insertion  ?night  lead  the  trans- 
lator into  "the  province  of  the  commentator."  The 
words  added  in  the  text  (in  italics)  in  the  Revised  and  in 
previous  Versions  are  often  equivalent  to  a  comment,  and 
should  be  excluded  by  a  strict  application  of  that  rule. 
The  outlook  for  the  new  version  to  displace  the  old  is  not 
yet  very  promising.  It  has  been  sharply  criticised  by  some 
able  Biblical  scholars  in  Great  Britain  and  America. 

10.  It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  present 
"Authorized  Version"  was  also  criticised  and  was  from 
thirty  to  fifty  years  in  coming  into  popular  and  universal 
use ;  but  it  finally  displaced  the  popular  Genevan  Version 
and  the  Bishops'  Bible,  which  had  been  favored  by  royal 
and  by  ecclesiastical  authority. 

11.  American  scholarship  was  tardily,  though  on  the 
whole  fairly,  recognized  in  the  work.  Over  900  American 
suggestions  in  the  New  Testament  were  adopted  by  the 
British  revisers.1 

1  Among  the  more  important  American  renderings  which  the  Eng- 
lish revisers  were  unwilling  to  adopt  were  :  (1)  "  demon  "  or  "  demons" 
for  "  devil"  or  "  devils"  in  such  phrases  as  "to  cast  out  devils."  The 
Bible  speaks  of  many  evil  spirits,  but  of  only  one  devil;  (2)  "who" 
or  "that"  in  place  of  "which"  when  applied  to  persons,  and  to  substi- 
tute modern  forms  of  speech  for  such  archaic  forms  as  "  wot,"  "wist," 
"hale  ;  "  (3)  "  hades"  for  "hell "  when  the  Greek  refers  to  the  realm 
of  the  dead,  using  "hell "  to  apply  only  to  the  place  of  torment :  a 
distinction  the  English  revisers  admitted  in  the  book  of  Revelation  ; 
(4)  a  more  accurate  designation  of  coins;  (5)  omit  the  title  "Saint" 
and  "Apostle  "  in  the  headings  to  New  Testament  books.     See  "  Ap- 


12  THE   ANGLO-AMERICAN   AND 

12.  Conservative  Plan. — The  principles  guiding  the  re- 
visers were  very  conservative.  They  were  to  make  "  as 
few  alterations  as  possible,"  as  already  stated.  About 
36,000  were  made  in  the  New  Testament,  but  proportion- 
ately fewer  in  the  Old  Testament.  They  were  to  limit  the 
"expression  of  such  alterations  to  the  language  of  the  au- 
thorized or  earlier  versions."  About  6,000  changes  were 
made  in  the  Greek  text  of  the  New  Testament ;  but  com- 
paratively few  changes  in  the  Hebrew  and  Chaldaic  text 
of  the  Old  Testament.1  The  original  text  followed  (He- 
brew and  Greek)  was  to  "  be  that  for  which  the  evidence  is 
decidedly  preponderating."  No  radical  changes  could  be 
made  under  the  rules  adopted,  nor  could  an  essentially  new 
translation  be  introduced  under  cover  of  revision.  Even 
those  who  criticise  the  infelicitous  English  it  occasionally 
uses,  admit  that  the  renderings  generally  represent  the 
original  more  accurately  than  previous  English  versions. 
If  this  proves  to  be  true,  the  Revision  can  afford  to  wait ; 
truth  is  stronger  than  prejudice  and  error,  and  will  finally 
prevail.  Let  us  now  consider  the  translation  upon  which 
the  Revised  Version  was  based. 

13.  The  King  James  or  "Authorized  Version."    This 
version  of  the  Bible  was  proposed  by  Dr.  Reynolds,2  of 


pendix  "  to   Revised  Testament,  and   Companion  to  Revised  Version 
by  A.  Roberts,  Am.  ed.,  pp.  177  fif.     Also  Companion  by  Schaff. 

1  Of  the  nearly  6,000  changes  made  in  the  Greek  New  Testament 
text,  and  over  36,000  changes  in  the  English  New  Testament  of 
the  Authorized  Version,  the  great  majority  are  of  trivial  or  minor  im- 
portance, and  would  not  be  noticed  by  the  common  reader. 

Of  the  179,914  words  in  the  Revised  New  Testament  154,526  are 
retained  from  the  "  Authorized  Version."  See  R.  Wendell,  Revised 
New  Testament. 

2  Dr.  Reynolds  was  a  Puritan  and  President  of  Corpus  Christi  Col- 
lege, Oxford.  He  was  stoutly  opposed  by  Bishop  Bancroft,  but  James 
I.  was  vain,  and  aped  Solomon  for  wisdom. 


KING   JAMES   VERSIONS.  13 

Oxford,  and  ordered  by  James  I.,  in  1604.  The  king  ap- 
pointed fifty-four  translators  (probably  suggested  by  the 
universities)  ;  but  the  work  was  delayed  for  three  years, 
and  the  list  we  have  gives  only  forty-seven  scholars  cer- 
tainly known  to  have  entered  upon  the  work.  They  were 
divided  into  six  companies.  Each  company  was  assigned 
a  portion  of  the  Bible  (including  the  Apocrypha)  to  trans- 
late ;  two  companies  meeting  at  Westminster,  two  at  Ox- 
ford and  two  at  Cambridge.1 

14.  Principle  of  the  Version  of  161 1. — This  translation 
was  to  conform  to  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  texts;  but  the 
then  current  Bishops'  Version  "was  to  be  as  little  altered 
as  the  truth  of  the  original  will  admit."  The  older  versions, 
as  Tyndale's,  Coverdale's,  Whitchurch's  and  the  Genevan, 
might  also  be  used  when  they  agreed  "  better  with  the  text 
than  the  Bishops'  Bible. " 

15.  King  James'  Version  a  Revision. — In  fact,  therefore, 
the  King  James  Version  was  a  revision,  rather  than  an  en- 
tirely new  translation.  This  is  also  implied  by  the  title-page 
in  our  common  Bibles.  2  When  the  scholars  appointed  by 
King  James  had  completed  their  revision  or  translation,  six 
of  their  number  (some  say  twelve)  met  to  review  the  work  and 
correct  the  printer's  proofs.  It  was  issued  in  a  black-letter 
folio  volume  by  R.  Barker,  with  a  fulsome  dedication  to 

1  The  first  company  at  Westminster  had  the  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment to  2  Kings ;  the  second  company  had  the  Epistles  of  the  New 
Testament.  The  first  company  at  Oxford  had  the  prophetical  books 
from  Isaiah  to  Malachi ;  the  second  had  the  four  Gospels,  Acts  and 
Revelation.  The  first  company  at  Cambridge  had  the  other  Old  Testa- 
ment books,  and  the  second  had  the  Old  Testament  Apochryphal 
books. 

1  "  The  Holy  Bible,  translated  out  of  the  original  tongues ;  and 
with  the  former  translations  diligently  compared  and  revised."  Some 
English  Bibles  add,  "By  his  majesty's  special  command."  "Appointed 
to  be  read  in  churches." 


14  THE   ANGLO-AMERICAN   AND 

the  king  and  a  pedantic  preface  written  by  Dr.  Miles 
Smith,  giving  the  reasons  for  the  work  and  the  principles 
guiding  those  who  did  it. 

1 6.  Why  called  "Authorized  Version" — The  King 
James  Version  is  popularly,  though  not  accurately,  called 
the  "Authorized  Version."  On  the  title-page  as  now 
printed  in  England  is  a  notice,  "Appointed  to  be  read  in 
churches."  But  this  was  not  on  the  first  edition  of  the 
New  Testament  of  1611,  nor  on  several  editions  of  the 
Bible  issued  in  the  first  five  years  after  the  issue  of  the 
King  James  Version,  The  most  diligent  search  of  officials 
and  scholars  has  failed  to  find  any  evidence  that  the  version 
was  ever  publicly  sanctioned  in  161 1  by  convocation,  privy 
council,  parliament  or  by  the  king.  It  gained  the  title 
possibly  because  the  work  was  ordered  by  the  king.  The 
version  (for  it  was  not  a  new  translation)  gradually  dis- 
placed the  existing  versions  (the  Bishops'  and  the  Genevan), 
and  won  its  way  to  popular  acceptance  by  its  superior 
merits.  But  the  contest  was  a  long  one.  The  King  James 
Version  was  attacked  for  lack  of  fidelity  to  the  Hebrew  and 
Greek  text.  Romanists  likewise  accused  it  of  misrepre- 
senting Scripture  to  favor  Protestantism.  Arminians 
charged  it  with  a  Calvinistic  bias,  Puritans  with  a  leaning 
to  the  Church  of  England,  and  others  with  favoring  mo- 
narchical notions.     (See  1  Pet.  2  :  13.) 

1 7.  For  more  than  twenty  years  after  the  issue  of  the 
King  James  Version  the  Genevan  Version  was  widely,  if 
not  generally,  used  in  private  and  public  worship.  Though 
no  edition  of  the  Bishops'  Bible  was  issued  after  1608,  the 
New  Testament  of  the  Bishops'  Version  appeared  in  at  least 
five  editions  from  1608  to  161 8.  Editions  of  the  Genevan 
Version  of  the  New  Testament  and  of  the  Bible  continued 


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KING   JAMES   VERSIONS.  17 

to  be  issued  freely  up  to  1644.  Texts  for  sermons  were 
chosen  from  the  Genevan  or  other  versions  than  the  so- 
called  Authorized  Version,  even  by  bishops  and  those  high 
in  authority,  for  many  years  after  161 1.  Even  as  late  as 
1653  parliament  considered  a  bill  for  the  appointment  of  a 
committee  to  revise  the  King  James  Version.  This  project 
failed,  as  parliament  soon  after  dissolved.  The  house  of 
Stuarts  was  restored  to  the  rule  of  England,  and  the  version 
of  161 1  was  left  to  win  its  way  over  all  previous  versions 
and  to  remain  the  popular  English  version  since  that  period. 
18.  Changes  in  the  Version  of  161 1. — Comparing  a  com- 
mon English  Bible  of  now  with  a  copy  of  the  first  issue  of 
161 1,  marked  differences  are  at  once  seen.  Not  only  is  a 
difference  seen  in  the  forms  of  the  letters  and  in  the  spell- 
ing of  many  words,  but  in  the  readings  of  numerous  pas- 
sages.1 After  the  folio  edition  of  161 1,  the  King  James 
Version  appeared  in  an  octavo  form  in  161 2,  and  in  an 
edition  omitting  the  apocryphal  books  in  1629.  The  errors 
of  the  earlier  issues  were  corrected  in  editions  of  161 6,  but 
especially  of  1629  and  1638. 2  Bishop  Lloyd's  edition,  of 
London  1701,  was  the  first  that  gave  chronological  dates 
in  the  margin,  based  chiefly  upon  the  chronology  of  Ussher. 


1  For  instances  of  this,  see  Scrivener's  Preface  to  the  Cambridge 
Paragraph  Bible.  Even  the  folio  edition  of  1613  differs  from  that  of 
161 1  in  over  four  hundred  places. 

3  The  errors  of  some  editions  gave  them  celebrity,  as  the  "  Vinegar 
Bible"  (a  splendid  and  costly  one),  Oxford,  1717,  so  called  from  a 
misprint  of  vinegar  for  vineyard  in  heading  of  Luke  20.  The 
"Wicked  Bible"  (8vo.  1631)  was  so  called  from  the  omission  of 
"  not "  in  the  seventh  commandment,  and  Laud  fined  the  king's 
printers  ^300  for  their  carelessness  in  printing  it.  A  copy  of  the 
"  Wicked  Bible  "  is  in  the  Lenox  Library,  New  York.  There  is  a 
German  Bible,  1731,  with  a  similar  blunder.  The  "Breeches  Bible" 
was  so  called  from  the  reading  of  a  Genevan  edition,  "  made  them- 
selves breeches,"  Gen.  3  :  7. 


18       THE  ANGLO-AMERICAN  AND  KING  JAMES  VERSIONS. 

Additional  marginal  references  were  inserted  by  Dr.  Paris 
in  1762,  and  by  Dr.  Blayney  in  1769. 

19.  No  Standard  Edition  of  the  King  James  Version. — 
The  Committee  on  Versions  (1851-56)  of  the  American 
Bible  Society  found  twenty-four  thousand  variations  in 
six  different  editions  of  the  Authorized  Version,  and  recom- 
mended improvements,  which  were  adopted,  including  re- 
visions of  the  chapter  headings.  So  great  was  the  popular 
opposition  to  these  changes,  that  the  society  was  compelled 
to  discontinue  issuing  the  amended  edition  and  return  to 
the  old  issues,  with  all  their  variations  and  imperfections. 
This,  however,  shows  how  strong  a  hold  the  Bible  has  upon 
the  popular  heart.  We  have  therefore  no  standard  edition 
of  the  "Authorized  Version  "  of  the  English  Bible.  The 
King  James  Version  of  the  English  Bible  belongs  to  the 
golden  age  of  English  literature,  the  age  of  Shakespeare 
and  Milton  and  the  greatest  of  English  classics.  It  pos- 
sesses the  strength  of  the  Saxon,  the  grace  of  the  Norman 
French,  and  the  dignity  of  the  Latin,  harmoniously  mingled 
into  vigorous  and  perspicuous  English. 


CHAPTER  II. 

EARLY    ENGLISH  VERSIONS. 

i.  The  Common  Version  a  Growth. — Our  common  Eng- 
lish Bible,  the  King  James  or  so-called  "Authorized  Ver- 
sion," is  the  outgrowth  of  many  preceding  versions,  and 
the  fruit  of  more  than  two  centuries  of  labor  by  many 
eminent  Biblical  scholars. 

2.  The  Douai  Version. — The  great  eagerness  of  the 
people  for  the  Bible  in  their  own  tongue  compelled  the 
Romanists  to  issue  a  version,  as  they  state,  "  specially  for 
the  discovery  of  the  corruptions  of  divers  late  translations 
and  for  clearing  the  controversies  in  religion  of  these 
days."1  The  New  Testament  was  published  at  Rheims, 
1582.  The  Old  Testament  was  translated  about  the  same 
time,  but  was  not  published  until  1609-10  at  Douai  or 
Douay,  and  the  Douai  Bible  complete  at  Rouen,  1633-35. 
The  work  is  believed  to  owe  its  origin  to  William  Allen, 
one  of  the  founders  of  the  college  at  Douai.  The  transla- 
tion is  from  the  Latin  Vulgate,  and  was  made  by  Gregory 
Martin  and  three  or  four  other  English  scholars.  Modern 
editions  of  the  Douai  Version  differ  widely  from  the  orig- 
inal version.  Cardinal  Wiseman  says,  "  To  call  the  Roman 
Catholic  version  now  in  use  the  version  of  Rheims  and 
Douai  is  an  abuse  of  terms.     It  has  been  altered  and  mod- 

1  From  title-page,  Rhemish  New  Testament,  1582. 
2  (19) 


20  EARLY   ENGLISH   VERSIONS. 

ified  till  scarcely  any  verse  remains  as  it  was  originally 
published."  1  The  Roman  Church  has  never  been  friendly 
to  vernacular  translations  of  the  Bible,  and  hence  the  Douai 
Version  has  had  a  comparatively  small  circulation.  Though 
it  may  have  contributed  some  minor  improvements  to  the 
King  James  Version,  it  is  not  in  the  line  of  succession  of 
that  version.  The  next  link  immediately  back  of  the  King 
James  Version  is  the  Bishops'  Bible. 

3.  The  Bishops'  Bible  was  prepared  by  Matthew  Parker, 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  ten  or  fifteen  men  of  learn- 
ing, most  of  whom  were  bishops ;  hence  its  title  Bishops' 
Bible.  It  was  completed,  and  a  copy  presented  to  Queen 
Elizabeth,  in  1568.  Parker  issued  a  revised  edition  in 
1572.     This  version  is  also  sometimes  called  Parker's  Bible. 

4.  Why  Made. — The  Genevan  Version  (see  p.  21)  with 
brief  explanatory  notes  had  become  the  Bible  of  the  com- 
mon people,  having  displaced  the  Great  Bible  of  Cranmer, 
used  by  the  clergy  and  in  the  church  services.  As  the  Great 
Bible  was  not  as  accurate  a  translation  as  the  Genevan,  and 
could  not  regain  its  former  popularity,  a  new  version  was 
attempted  which  would  be  more  acceptable  to  royalists 
than  the  Calvinistic  and  republican  ideas  reflected  in  some 
of  the  comments  of  the  version  by  the  Puritan  reformers 
of  Geneva. 

5.  The  Bishops'  Bible  was  completed  in  about  three 
years.  The  rules  laid  down  by  Parker  were  conservative 
and  simple  :  (1)  To  follow  the  common  English  translation 
used  in  the  churches,  except  where  it  varied  from  the  orig- 
inal ;  (2)  to  use  chapter  and  verse  divisions  as  in  Pagninus 
and  Munster;  (3)  to  make  no  "bitter  notes;"  (4)  to 
change  indelicate  words  to  "more  convenient  terms."     It 

1  Wiseman's  Essays,  vol.  i.  pp.  73-75. 


EARLY   ENGLISH  VERSIONS.  21 

contained  marginal  notes,  references  and  brief  comments 
explanatory  of  the  text.1 

6.  Several  editions  of  the  Bishops'  Bible  were  issued ; 
the  last  in  1608.  In  15  71  Convocation  ordered  that  every 
archbishop  and  bishop  should  have  a  copy  of  this  version, 
"  of  the  largest  volume,"  placed  in  his  hall  or  dining-room 
for  the  use  of  servants  or  strangers,  and  also  a  copy  in 
every  cathedral,  and  if  possible  in  every  church.  This  was 
clearly  at  that  time  the  so-called  "Authorized  Version." 
It  supplanted  the  Great  Bible,  but  the  Genevan  held  its 
place  with  the  people. 

7.  The  Genevan  Version  was  made  by  English  reform- 
ers who  found  a  refuge  in  Geneva  from  the  persecution  of 
Queen  Mary,  and  was  published  in  1560. 

8.  Genevan  New  Testament,  1557. — Three  years  earlier 
a  translation  of  the  New  Testament  into  English  was  made 
at  Geneva  by  William  Whittingham  (aided  perhaps  by 
others),  who  had  married  Calvin's  sister. 

9.  The  Genevan  Bible  was  a  distinct  work,  begun  in 
1558  and  completed  in  1560.  The  translation  was  the 
joint  work  of  a  company  of  learned  men,  among  whom 
were  Coverdale,  Knox,  Whittingham,  Goodman  and  Cole. 
But  the  translation  of  the  New  Testament  in  the  Genevan 
Bible  was  a  careful  revision  of  the  Genevan  New  Testament 

of  1557. 

10.  Popular  Merits  of  the  Genevan  Bible. — (1)  The 
translation  was  from  the  best  original  texts  then  known. 
(2)  Its  form  was  a  neat  quarto  instead  of  the  clumsy  folio. 

1  Some  of  the  comments  are  curious :  Rom.  1 1  :  8  reads,  "  the  spirit 
of  remorse ;"  the  comment  is,  "  pricking  and  unquietness  of  conscience." 
Isa.  66 :  3  reads,  "  he  that  killeth  a  sheep  for  me  knetcheth  a  dog ;  "  the 
note  explains,  "that  is,  cutteth  off  a  dog's  neck;"  a  much-needed 
note ! 


22  EARLY   ENGLISH   VERSIONS. 

(3)  Explanatory  notes  on  hard  texts  (Swiss  in  doctrine  and 
politics)  were  given  in  the  margin.  (4)  The  type  was  clear 
Roman  in  place  of  the  unsightly  black  letter  formerly 
used.  (5)  The  text  was  broken  into  chapters  and  verses 
after  Stephens'  Greek  Testament  (155 1)  and  Pagninus' 
Latin  (1528),  but  adding  numerals  at  the  beginning  of 
each  verse.  (6)  Chapter  headings,  references  and  (in 
Henry's  edition,  1578)  a  Bible  dictionary  of  value. 

11.  A  careful  revision  was  made  by  L.  Tomson,  in  1576, 
and  the  Genevan  was  the  first  Bible  printed  in  Scotland, 
1579.  It  was  the  first  complete  English  translation  of  the 
Bible  direct  from  the  Hebrew  and  Greek}  The  comments 
were  lucid,  vigorous,  sometimes  dogmatic,  but  generally 
practical.  It  quickly  gained  a  wide  popularity.  At  the 
accession  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Mary,  the  public  use  of 
the  English  Bible  was  forbidden  in  churches ;  all  copies 
that  could  be  found  were  burnt  (with  an  army  of  martyrs), 
and  not  a  single  Bible  was  printed  in  England  during  her 
five  years'  rule.  When  Elizabeth  became  queen  in  1558, 
the  Bible  was  again  freely  read.  Not  less  than  130  editions 
of  the  Genevan  Bible  were  printed,  over  90  of  them  before 
161 1.  It  retained  its  popularity  for  a  generation  after  the 
King  James  Version  appeared.2 

12.  The  Great  Bible  (1539)  was  edited  by  Miles  Cover- 
dale  under  direction   of  Thomas   Crumwell.     Paris  was 


1  The  Old  Testament  shows  that  Coverdale's  Great  Bible  was  care- 
fully consulted,  and  the  New  Testament  that  Tyndale's  Version  was 
followed.  It  is  nicknamed  the  "  Breeches  Bible,"  from  its  rendering 
"  made  themselves  breeches,"  Gen.  3  :  7. 

2  Yet  the  King  James  editions  of  161 2-1 3  had  a  title-page  the  fac- 
simile of  the  Genevan  (heart-shaped  oval  with  twelve  tribes  and  twelve 
apostles  in  margin),  and  other  editions  copied  the  form  and  style  of  the 
Bishops'  Bible  in  order  to  supplant  more  easily  these  popular  versions. 
Eadie,  Hist.,  vol.  ii.  p.  291. 


FACSIMILE  (REDUCED)  OK  TITLE   PAGE  OF  THE   GREAT  RIIJLE. 


EARLY   ENGLISH    VERSIONS.  25 

famous  for  the  excellence  of  its  paper  and  type.  Cover- 
dale  went  thither  to  have  it  printed.  But  the  work  was  in- 
terrupted by  order  of  the  Inquisition  and  many  sheets 
seized.  Most  of  these  were  recovered,  and,  with  types, 
presses  and  men,  brought  to  England,  where  the  work  was 
issued  in  1539.  It  has  an  elaborately  engraved  title-page 
designed  by  Hans  Holbein,  the  most  famous  wood-en- 
graver of  his  day.1  From  its  large  size,  14  x  9  inches,  this 
work  was  called  The  Great  Bible.  A  second  edition  in 
1540  had  a  preface  by  Cranmer,  from  which  it  has  been  in- 
accurately called  Cranmer1  s  Bible.  It  is  likewise  called 
Whit ec hit r cti s  or  Whitchurch' s  Bible,  after  the  name  of  the 
printer.  The  version  is  mainly  a  careful  revision  of  Cover- 
dale' s  Bible  of  1535,  and  is  of  special  interest  because  the 
Psalter  and  the  Scripture  selections  in  the  communion  ser- 
vice of  the  English  Church  Prayer-book  are  from  the  Great 
Bible.  It  remained  the  "Authorized  Version  "  for  twenty- 
eight  years;  indeed,  strictly  it  is  the  only  "Authorized 
Version,"  for  neither  the  Bishops'  nor  the  King  James  Ver- 
sion ever  had  formal  royal  approbation  or  authority.2 

13.  Coverdale' 's  Bible,  1535,  which  the  Great  Bible 
closely  resembled,  was  based  largely  upon  the  Latin  Vul- 
gate and  German  Versions,  as  the  title  to  his  New  Testa- 
ment honestly  states.3  The  German  versions  used  were 
doubtless  Luther's  and  the  Zurich  ;  Pagninus  and  the  Latin 
Vulgate,  and  Tyndale,  probably  make  up  the  "five  inter- 
preters" Coverdale  says  he  followed.     The  chief  merit  of 


1  A  fac- simile  of  the  title-page  is  given  from  Moulton's  History  of 
the  English  Bible. 

2  See  Eadie,  Hist.  Eng.  Bible,  vol.  i.  p.  383. 

■  "  P.iblia— the  Bible  :  that  is  the  Holy  Scripture  of  the  Olde  and 
N«we  Testament  faithfully  and  truly  translated  out  of  Douche  and 
Latyn  in  to  Englishe  MDXXXV." 


26  EARLY   ENGLISH   VERSIONS. 

his  version  is  its  pure,  strong  English  idiom,  sometimes 
quaint  withal,  but  generally  musical.  Some  of  the  most 
rhythmical  and  familiar  passages  in  the  Psalms  come  to  us 
from  Coverdale's  Version.  He  also  edited  a  New  Testa- 
ment, 1538,  with  the  Latin  and  English  side  by  side. 

14.  Matthew'' s  Bible,  1537,  which  was  issued  soon  after 
Coverdale's,  and  before  the  Great  Bible,  was  the  reputed 
work  of  Thomas  Matthew.  But  this  was  clearly  an  as- 
sumed name,  and  it  is  almost  certain  that  the  real  author 
was  John  Rogers  the  martyr.  Rogers  was  a  friend  of  Tyn- 
dale,  and  the  translation  is  substantially  the  version  of 
Tyndale  except  from  Ezra  to  Malachi,  which  is  almost 
identical  with  Coverdale's,  1535. 

15.  Taverner's  Bible,  1539,  *s  a  comparatively  unimpor- 
tant revision  of  Matthew's  Bible,  the  chief  difference  in 
the  Old  Testament  consisting  in  the  omission  or  abridg- 
ment of  the  notes.  In  the  New  Testament  changes  were 
made  in  the  text  also,  some  of  them  valuable ;  but  his  ver- 
sion is  of  unequal  merit.  As  a  scholar  Richard  Taverner 
was  capricious. 

16.  Tyndale's  New  Testament  Version,  1526. — When 
a  learned  papist  declared  with  some  zeal  to  William  Tyn- 
dale, "We  were  better  be  without  God's  law  than  the 
pope's,"  Tyndale  replied,  "  If  God  spare  my  life,  ere 
many  years  I  will  cause  a  ploughboy  to  know  more  of  the 
Scripture  than  thou  doest."  Though  he  died  a  martyr, 
1536,  he  was  able  to  fulfill  his  declaration.  But  he  was 
compelled  to  leave  England  in  1524  and  completed  his 
translation  in  exile. 

17.  Tyndale1  s  New  Testament,  IS 26,  was  the  first  Eng- 
lish version  made  directly  from  the  Greek,  (since  Wyc- 
liflfe's  version  was  from  the  Latin  Vulgate),  and  the  first 


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EARLY    ENGLISH    VERSIONS.  29 

English  New  Testament  printed.1  It  was  issued  at  Worms 
in  two  editions,  a  quarto  and  an  octavo ;  3000  copies  of 
each  were  printed  and  sent  to  England  in  the  spring  of 
1526.  The  title-page  has  an  illuminated  border  showing 
figures  of  the  four  Evangelists  and  the  Apostles  Peter, 
Paul,  James  and  Jude ;  but  it  gives  no  clue  to  editor, 
printer,  place  or  date  of  publication. 

18.  Its  Chief  Features. — The  version  is  vigorous,  clear 
and  simple  enough  in  style  for  the  "  ploughboy  "  to  under- 
stand. The  text  is  arranged  in  paragraphs,  with  chapter 
divisions  but  no  verses.  It  omits  the  doxology  to  the 
Lord's  Prayer.  Tyndale  also  translated  various  portions 
of  the  Old  Testament,  including  all  of  the  Pentateuch, 
which  were  published  after  his  death.  Tyndale's  work 
was  revised  and  incorporated  into  Matthew* s  Bible,  1537, 
as  already  stated. 

19.  Our  Common  Version  is  more  deeply  indebted  for 
its  felicities  of  language  to  Tyndale's  than  to  any  other 
version.  "Our  English  Testament,"  says  Ellicott,  "after 
all  its  changes,  revisions  and  remodellings,  is  still  truly 
and  substantially  the  venerable  version  of  Tyndale  the 
martyr."2  "The  peculiar  genius,"  says  Froude,  "  which 
breathes  through  it  [our  English  Bible],  the  mingled  ten- 
derness and  majesty — the  Saxon  simplicity — the  preternat- 
ural grandeur — unequalled,  unapproached  in  the  attempted 
improvements  of  modern  scholars,  all  are  here,  and  bear 
the  impress  of  the  mind  of  one  man — William  Tyndale."  8 

20.  Wycliffe's  Version,  1382,  was  the  first  complete 

1  The  only  portion  of  the  Scriptures  printed  in  English  before  this 
was  a  portion  of  the  Psalms,  in  1505. 

2  On  Revision,  p.  85. 

*  Hist.  Eng.,  vol.  iii.  p.  84. 


30  EARLY  ENGLISH  VERSIONS. 

translation  of  the  Bible  into  English.1  But  it  was  made 
from  the  Latin  Vulgate,  and  as  it  was  before  the  invention 
of  the  art  of  printing,  it  was  a  manuscript  or  written  Bible. 
This  translation  of  the  New  Testament  was  completed  in 
1380,  and  was  entirely  by  John  de  Wycliffe  or  Wiclif.2 
The  Old  Testament  was  finished  about  1382,  Nich- 
olas de  Hereford  aiding  Wycliffe  in  this  portion  of  the 
work. 

21.  A  careful  revision,  called  Purvey1  s  Version,  has  sev- 
eral important  changes,  and  as  a  marked  feature,  short 
comments  in  the  margin.  These  versions  are  anonymous. 
A  translator  of  the  Bible  was  exposed  to  peril,  making  con- 
cealment necessary.  But  the  versions  were  not  hid.  They 
were  eagerly  sought  and  read.  Copies  were  made  and 
passed  into  the  hands  of  all  classes  of  people.  The  king 
and  the  princes  had  them.  Nearly  170  manuscript  copies 
of  Purvey' s  Version  made  before  1430  have  been  preserved 
and  examined,  although  a  strict  inquisition  in  that  age 
searched  for  and  burned  all  the  writings  of  Wycliffe  and 
his  followers  which  could  be  found.  Of  the  character  of 
this  first  English  Bible  it  must  be  said  that  it  was  baldly 

1  Metrical  versions  and  paraphrases  of  portions  of  the  Bible  were 
made  in  English  earlier  than  Wycliffe,  and  two  prose  versions  of  the 
Psalms,  one  by  William  of  Shoreham,  1327,  and  the  other  soon  after 
by  Richard  Rolle.  Foxe,  Johnson,  Newcome  and  others,  including  Sir 
Thomas  More,  have  asserted  that  Bede  translated  the  Scriptures  com- 
plete into  the  vernacular ;  but  their  assertion  is  not  supported  by  his- 
tory. More  appears  to  have  referred  to  portions  of  the  Bible  rendered 
into  Anglo-Saxon,  and  the  statements  of  others  rest  upon  mistaken  in- 
formation. See  George  P.  Marsh,  Lects.  Eng.  Lang. ;  Preface  to 
Wyckliffe  by  Forshall  and  Madden. 

2  His  name  was  spelled  about  thirty  different  ways,  giving  an  excel- 
lent illustration  of  the  unsettled  condition  of  the  English  tongue  at 
that  period. 

A  copy  of  the  Bible  in  1429  cost  from  £2  to  ^3,  and  for  a  few 
leaves  poor  persons  gladly  gave  a  load  of  hay. 


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literal.     Yet,  thrown  into  modern 

forms  of  spelling,   the  version    has 

many  words  and  phrases  that  were 

retained  in  later   translations.       It 

was  the  language  of  the  people,  and 

£  fed  their  hungry  souls  with  the  bread 

>m  God. 

22.  Anglo-Saxon  Versions. — Most 
?  43 
"c  of  the  translations  of  portions  of  the 

E  %  Bible,  earlier  than  Wycliffe'  s,  were 
Er  mere  paraphrases,  sometimes  failing 
to  give  the  correct  sense  of  Scrip- 
ture. Such  a  paraphrase  of  the 
w_o  Gospels  and  the  Acts  in  English, 
h  s  but  written  in  the  Saxon  characters, 
|  v  was  made  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
*  x  twelfth  century  by  Orme  or  Ormun, 


3£  from  God. 

a.  .5 


2  3 

S  c 

£  o 

si  rt 


and  is  called  the  "Ormulum." 
Several  interlinear  versions  (Vul- 
gate of  Jerome  and  the  Vernacular) 
were  made  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh 
centuries,  a  part  of  one  known  as 
the  "Rush  worth  Gloss"  being 
I  now  in  the  Bodleian  library.  These 
t.  .£  interlinear  versions  were  probably 
made  for  the  use  of  priests  who 
did  not  understand  the  Latin. 
King  Alfred  made  a  translation  of 
the  Ten  Commandments,  portions 
of  the  Gospels,  and  he  projected  a 
translation  of  the  Psalter,  but  his 
death   prevented   its  completion.       The   Venerable   Bede 


C/5     g 

>^ 

O  W 

<-  ■*-> 

o  — 

►J    4) 

2  S> 


w 


34  EARLY   ENGLISH    VERSIONS. 

(672-755)  completed  a  translation  of  the  Gospel  of  John 
into  the  vernacular  and  wrote  commentaries  on  most  of 
the  books  of  the  Bible.  His  Church  History  was  among 
the  first  books  printed  in  Germany  (1474).  The  earliest 
Anglo-Saxon  paraphrases  of  portions  of  the  Bible  were  in 
verse,  by  Guthloe,  Aldhelm,  and  the  most  noted  one  by 
Caedmon,  about  680.  The  Christian  Scriptures  were  re- 
puted to  have  been  introduced  into  England  by  the 
Monk  Augustin,  about  596,  who  used  copies  of  the  Old 
Latin  Version,  from  which  the  earlier  Anglo-Saxon  trans- 
lations were  made. 

23.  Language  of  English  Bible. — (1)  In  many  paragraphs 
of  the  common  English  Version  39  words  in  40  are  of 
Anglo-Saxon  derivation. 

(2)  In  the  story  of  Joseph  (Gen.  42  :  21-29),  there  are 
only  7  words  beside  proper  names  which  are  not  Anglo- 
Saxon. 

(3)  In  the  parable  of  the  Sower  (Matt.  13,  etc.),  of  106 
different  words,  only  3  are  not  Anglo-Saxon. 

(4)  The  Lord's  Prayer  (Matt.  6  :  9-13)  has  65  words 
("  forever  "  one  word),  59  are  of  Anglo-Saxon  and  6  are 
of  Latin  derivation. 

(5)  In  John  11  :  32-36,  70  words  in  72  are  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  origin.  In  Milton's  "  Paradise  Lost,"  Book  IV: 
639,  etc.,  of  90  words  only  74  are  Anglo-Saxon.  In  the 
famous  passage  of  Shakespeare,  "  To  be  or  not  to  be,"  of 
81  words  13  are  not  Anglo-Saxon.  This  shows  the  great 
comparative  strength  of  the  English  Bible  in  words  of 
Anglo-Saxon  origin. 

24.  Leading  Facts  about  English  Bibles. 

(1)  First  complete  Bible  in  English  (by  *Wycliffe)yh?w; 
the  Latin,  1382. 


EARLY    ENGLISH    VERSIONS.  35 

(2)  First  complete  New  Testament  in  English  (by  Tyn- 
dale)  from  the  Greek,  1526. 

(3)  First  printed  English  Bible,  complete  (Coverdale's), 

*535- 

(4)  First  English  Testament  divided  into  verses  (Gene- 
van), 1557. 

(5)  First  English  Bible  divided  into  verses  (Genevan), 
1560. 

(6)  First  English  Bible,  translated  complete  from  the 
original  languages,  Greek  and  Hebrew  (the  Genevan  Ver- 
sion), 1560. 

(7)  Cost  of  early  English  Bibles  :  two  arches  of  the  Lon- 
don bridge,  built  in  the  thirteenth  century,  are  reported  to 
have  cost  ^25  ;  a  written  copy  of  the  Bible  cost  ^30.  A 
laborer's  wages  was  \\d.  a  day  and  board  ;  hence  the  cost 
of  a  Bible  would  be  equal  to  a  laborer's  wages  for  about 
fifteen  years.  It  was  perilous  for  common  people  to  read 
or  to  own  a  Bible.  For  example,  in  1429,  Marjery  Back- 
ster  was  indicted  for  asking  her  maid  to  hear  her  husband 
read  the  Bible  by  night.  In  1514-1519,  John  Stevenson 
was  arrested  for  teaching  the  Ten  Commandments,  and 
Thomas  Collins  had  his  father  arrested  for  the  same  offence. 
Robert  Pope  informed  against  his  wife,  son  and  father  for 
hearing  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  read  to  them. 


CHAPTER  III. 

MODERN   VERSIONS    OTHER   THAN    ENGLISH. 

i.  Next  to  a  knowledge  of  our  own  versions,  all  English- 
speaking  peoples  should  gain  some  knowledge  of  the  Ger- 
man versions  of  the  Bible.  While  the  Common  Version 
of  the  English  Bible  is  the  growth  of  centuries,  the  mature 
fruit  of  successive  generations  of  Biblical  scholars  from 
WycklifTe  to  the  King  James  revisers,  the  German  version 
bears  largely  the  impress  of  one  mind  and  one  genius — Mar- 
tin Luther.  There  were  earlier  versions  in  German,  but  the 
great  version,  the  one  version  and  the  only  popular  one 
that  is  truly  German,  is  that  made  by  the  great  reformer. 

2.  Earlier  German  Versions. — Passing  the  Gothic  ver- 
sion of  the  fourth  century,  there  was  a  translation  of  the 
Bible  made  in  the  fourteenth  century,  by  some  unknown 
scholars,1  from  the  Latin  Vulgate.  No  less  than  seventeen 
editions  of  it  were  printed  between  1462  and  1522 — four- 
teen of  them  in  High  German  and  three  or  four  in  Low 
German  dialect.  Most  of  these  were  issued  of  folio  size, 
in  two  volumes,  with  wood  engravings.  The  Archbishop 
of  Mainz  in  i486  forbade  the  printing  of  sacred  and 
learned  books,  especially  the  German  Bible,  on  the  ground 
that  the  German  language  was  incapable  of  correctly  rep- 


1  Some  have  ascribed  the  earlier  German  version  to  the  Waldenses 
(Keller,  Haupt),  but  it  may  have  sprung  from  a  love  of  the  word 
within  the  Romish  Church  (Jostes,  Schaff  and  others).  In  the  Munich 
Library  are  twenty-one  written  copies  of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  in 
early  German  versions. 

(36) 


MODERN    VERSIONS   OTHER   THAN    ENGLISH.  37 

resenting  religious  ideas  and  the  profound  sense  of  Greek 
and  Latin  works  ! 

3.  Luther' s  Version. — While  Luther  was  held  a  willing 
prisoner  in  Wartburg  Castle,  he  translated  the  New  Testa- 
ment into  German,  and  it  was  published  in  1522.  Its  title 
was  "  Das  Newe  Testament  Deutzsch.  Wittemberg."  It 
was  illustrated  with  wood  engravings  by  the  famous  Lucas 
Cranach,  having  one  illustration  at  the  beginning  of  each 
book  and  twenty-one  in  the  book  of  Revelation.  It  was 
divided  into  chapters  like  the  Latin  Bible,  and  into  para- 
graphs, but  not  into  verses.  The  Pentateuch  appeared  in 
1523,  the  Psalms  in  1524,  and  the  entire  Bible  (including 
the  Apocrypha)  in  1534.  In  translating  the  Old  Testament, 
Luther  formed  a  committee  (Bible  club)  of  his  colleagues, 
Melanchthon,  Justus  Jonas  and  four  others,  who  aided  him 
in  the  work.  Luther  continued  to  amend  and  improve  the 
version,  issuing  five  successive  revisions  of  it,  the  last  in 
1545.  He  retained  a  Latin  form  of  title,  Biblia,  and  the 
translation  was  issued  in  folio,  with  numerous  engravings. 

4.  Merits  of  Luther } s  Version. — The  German  Bible  was 
received  with  great  enthusiasm.  A  hundred  thousand 
copies — an  enormous  number  for  that  age — were  sold  be- 
tween 1534  and  15 74.1  If  his  version  did  not  form,  it 
may  be  said  to  have  reformed,  unified  and  crystallized  the 
German  language.  It  gave  it  wings,  and  made  it  intelli- 
gible to  the  common  people  in  all  parts  of  Germany.  It 
is  the  first  great  German  classic.  It  brought  one  language 
out  of  many  dialects — the  language  afterward  of  the  golden 
era  of  German  literature,  the  speech  of  Lessing,  Herder, 
Goethe  and  Schiller.2 

1  See  Schaff,  Hist.  Christ.  C/i.,  vol.  vi.  p.  350. 

2  Heinrich   Heine,  the  poet,  critic  and   German   Voltaire,  says  of 


38  MODERN  VERSIONS   OTHER   THAN   ENGLISH. 

5.  The  original  text  of  the  New  Testament,  upon  which 
Luther  based  his  version,  was  the  Greek  text  edited  by 
Erasmus,  15 19.  The  Old  Testament  was  translated  from 
the  Massoretic  Hebrew  text,  edited  by  G.  Ben  Moseh, 
1494  ;  but  the  Septuagint  and  the  Latin  Vulgate  were  often 
consulted,  and  in  the  Apocrypha  the  latter  was  chiefly  used 
as  a  basis.1 

6.  Revisions  of  Luther's  Version. — Besides  Luther's  own 
revisions  of  his  version,  there  have  been  many  others,  the 
most  important  being  an  official  revision  ordered  by  the 
Eisenach  German  Evangelical  Conference  of  1863.  This 
was  completed  and  published  at  Halle  in  1883,  and  is 
known  as  the  Probebibel.  The  revision  was  made  by  a 
company  of  eminent  Biblical  scholars  (eleven  on  the  New 
Testament  and  twenty  on  the  Old  Testament),  among 
whom  were  Tholuck,  Riehm,  Schlottmann,  Dillmann, 
Delitzsch,  Meyer,  Dorner  and  Kostlin.  The  revision  was 
extremely  conservative,  but  was  so  sharply  criticised  thai 
the  Eisenach  Conference  of  1886  recommitted  it  for  final 
action.  While  German  scholars  are  bold  and  independent 
in  theology,  they  are  conservative  and  timid  in  questions 
of  translation  affecting  the  laity. 

7.  The  Roman  Catholics,  though  stoutly  opposed  to  giv- 
ing the  people  the  Bible  in  the  vernacular,  were  compelled 


Luther,  "  He  created  the  German  language.  He  did  this  by  his  trans 
lation  of  the  Bible." — Hist,  of  Religion  and  Poetry  in  Germany,  Lon 
don,  vol.  i.  pp.  425,  427. 

1  Luther  omitted  the  famous  text  respecting  the  three  heavenly  wit 
nesses,  1  John  5:7,  which  appears  first  in  the  Frankfort  edition  of 
Luther's  version  (from  Erasmus'  Greek  text  of  1522),  and  is  retainec 
in  the  revised  version  of  Luther,  1883,  but  is  placed  in  brackets.  Th( 
most  popular  text  of  Luther's  Bible  is  that  by  the  Canstein  Bibh 
Society. 


MODERN   VERSIONS   OTHER   THAN    ENGLISH.  39 

by  Luther's  work  to  issue  rival  versions  in  self-defence.1 
The  chief  German  versions  by  Romanists  were  by  Emser, 
1527,  Dietenberger,  1534,  and  Eck,  1537.  They  are  all 
from  the  Vulgate,  and  generally  clumsy  and  stiff,  lacking 
the  purity  of  German  idiom  which  is  found  in  Luther's 
version.  Dietenberger's  revision  has  been  revised  by  Ulen- 
berg,  1630,  and  re-revised  by  theologians  of  Mainz,  1662, 
and  since  been  issued  as  the  Catholic  Bible  used  in  Ger- 
many and  by  German  Catholics.  Among  German  versions 
or  translations  of  the  Bible  made  for  scholars,  that  by  De 
Wette,  1809,  4th  ed.  1858,  and  that  of  Weizsacker,  Tubin- 
gen, 1875,  are  the  best. 

8.  Dutch  Versions. — The  first  complete  translation  of  the 
Bible  into  Dutch  was  made  by  Jacob  Van  Liesveldt,  and 
issued  in  two  volumes  folio,  Antwerp,  1526.  The  second 
edition  cost  the  printer  his  head.  The  version  was  par- 
tially supplanted  by  Utenhove's  version  in  1556.  These 
versions  were  not  in  the  best  idiomatic  Dutch.  The  first 
was  based  on  Luther's  version  and  the  Cologne  Bible ;  the 
second  upon  Luther's  German  and  Olivetan's  French 
version. 

9.  A  new  version  was  ordered  by  the  Dutch  synod  in 
15  7 1  ;  but  owing  to  troubles  and  divisions  in  affairs,  and  to 
the  deaths  of  scholars,  the  work  was  twice  interrupted  and 
long  delayed.  It  was  again  ordered  by  the  famous  Synod 
of  Dort,  1618,  which  appointed  three  translators  and  four- 
teen revisers ;  but  the  new  order  was  not  approved  by  the 
States  General  until  1624,  and  the  work  was  begun  in  1626 
and  was  carried  on  at  Leyden  for  eleven  years.     The  new 

1  Emser  charged  Luther  with  a  thousand  grammatical  and  heretical 
errors,  four  being  in  the  Lord's  Prayer;  among  them,  that  he  added 
the  doxology,  which  is  not  in  the  Latin  Vulgate. 


40  MODERN   VERSIONS   OTHER   THAN   ENGLISH. 

translation  finally  appeared  in  two  editions — one  with  and 
one  without  marginal  readings  and  references — in  1637. 
It  is  called  the  States'  Bible ;  and  so  superior  was  its  merit 
that  within  fifteen  years  it  gained  unanimous  popular  favor 
and  ecclesiastical  approval.  It  is  remarkable  for  its  felicity 
of  expression,  and  scholars  regard  it  as  one  of  the  best  of 
existing  versions. 

10.  The  General  Synod  appointed  a  committee  of  four- 
teen, in  1854,  to  revise  the  old  translation,  in  view  of  the 
progress  in  Biblical  criticism.  The  New  Testament  re- 
vision was  completed  and  issued  in  1867,  but  its  reception 
was  not  hearty ;  indeed  it  was  so  adverse  that  the  Old  Tes- 
tament part  was  indefinitely  postponed. 

11.  French  Versions. — Pierre,  about  11 70,  made  a  Bible 
History  in  French,  and  Gruars,  in  1286-89,  prepared  a 
similar  French  Bible  History.  The  first  complete  French 
version  of  the  Bible  was  by  Jean  de  Rely,  a  Roman  Catho- 
lic, in  1487,  based  on  the  Vulgate  and  former  partial  ver- 
sions. There  were  twelve  editions  of  this  version  issued. 
Another  version  was  made  by  Lefevre  d'Etaples,  and 
issued  in  Antwerp,  1^30.  Pierre  Robert  Olivetan  with  the 
aid  of  that  version  made  another,  corrected  by  Calvin, 
issued  at  the  expense  of  the  Waldenses  in  1535,  which  is 
known  as  the  first  Protestant  version.  The  evangelical 
pastors  of  Geneva  appointed  a  company  from  the^.r  own 
number  (among  them  Beza)  to  issue  a  new  version,  which 
was  completed  in  1588.  This  version  was  revised  by  Mar- 
tin, Amsterdam,  1707,  and  by  Ostervald,  1724. 

12.  Louis  Segond  issued  a  new  version,  Geneva,  1874, 
third  ed.  1879,  being  a  direct  translation  from  Hebrew  and 
Greek  into  French.  This  version  is  printed  by  the  Oxford 
press  (fifty  thousand  copies  first  edition),  with  prose  text  in 


MODERN   VERSIONS   OTHER   THAN    ENGLISH.  41 

paragraphs  and  the  poetry  in  verse  form,  the  verses  being 
noted  in  the  margin.  It  also  has  brief  notes  and  prefaces 
to  the  books,  and  is  regarded  as  a  decided  improvement 
upon  all  previous  French  versions.  The  British  and  For- 
eign Bible  Society,  however,  circulates  the  older  versions 
by  Martin  and  Ostervald,  revised  by  the  Bible  Society  of 
France. 

13.  Italian  Versions. — There  were  several  translations  of 
the  Bible  into  Italian  before  the  Reformation,  the  more  im- 
portant being  that  of  Nicolo,  Venice,  1471,  and  of  Bruc- 
cioli  from  the  original  texts — New  Testament,  1530,  the 
entire  Bible,  Venice,  1532.  The  latter  translator  was  in- 
dignant at  the  prohibition  of  the  spread  of  the  Bible 
among  the  people  in  the  vernacular,  but  his  version  was  put 
first  in  a  Roman  Catholic  list  of  prohibited  books. 

14.  The  first  Protestant  version  of  the  Bible  complete  in 
Italian  appeared  in  Geneva,  1562,  but  was  displaced  by 
that  of  Deodati,  made  from  the  original  texts,  Geneva, 
1607,  in  the  Lucchese  dialect  and  suited  for  the  peasants. 
Another  version  by  Martini,  Roman  Catholic  Archbishop 
of  Florence,  made  from  a  version  of  the  Latin,  was  is- 
sued at  Turin,  1776,  and  is  circulated  by  the  British  and 
Foreign  Bible  Society  (New  Testament,  ed.  1813,  the  Bible, 
ed.  1 821),  along  with  the  versions  of  Deodati  and  others. 

15.  Spanish  Versions. — The  earliest  known  translation  of 
the  New  Testament  into  Spanish  is  that  of  Francisco,  issued 
at  Antwerp,  1543,  and  by  Juan  Perez,  Venice,  1556.  The 
whole  Bible  was  translated  by  Cassidoro  Regno  and  pub- 
lished at  Basel,  1569  ;  was  revised  by  Valera  and  issued  at 
Amsterdam,  1602.  Another  version  was  made  by  San 
Miguel  and  published  at  Madrid,  in  1794.  This  was  in 
nineteen  volumes,  and  had  the  Latin  and  Spanish  texts  and 

3 


42  MODERN    VERSIONS  OTHER  THAN   ENGLISH. 

a  commentary  by  the  translator.  The  British  and  Foreign 
Bible  Society  has  distributed  Valera's  and  San  Miguel's 
versions  (the  text  only)  since  1828  until  the  present  (1891). 

16.  Danish  Versions. — The  first  complete  Danish  version 
of  the  Bible  was  edited  under  the  name  of  C.  Pederson  in 
1550,  and  has  been  often  revised,  a  thorough  revision  being 
made  in  1815  to  1824,  which  is  still  circulated  by  the 
British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  along  with  a  recent  re- 
vision, and  a  special  revision  known  as  the  Norwegian 
Bible,  made  by  the  Norwegian  Bible  Society  and  a  commit- 
tee of  revision  appointed  in  1871.  Until  the  division  of 
the  kingdoms,  in  181 4,  the  Norwegians  used  the  ordinary 
Danish  version. 

17.  A  Swedish  version  was  completed  in  15 41  by  Lau- 
rentius  and  Olaus  Petri.  This  has  been  often  revised  and 
is  still  in  use. 

18.  Besides  the  versions  in  the  principal  languages  of 
Europe,  there  have  been  many  versions  and  revisions  made 
in  other  European  languages  and  dialects,  as  the  Welsh, 
Gaelic,  Irish,  Portuguese,  Lap,  Polish,  Bohemian,  Russ, 
Slavonic,  Modern  Greek  and  many  others.  Of  these,  and 
the  two  hundred  to  three  hundred  missionary  translations, 
particular  notice  cannot  here  be  given. 

19.  The  modern  Arabic  version  begun  by  Eli  Smith, 
1847,  and  completed  by  his  co-laborer,  C.  V.  A.  Van 
Dyck,  1866,  is  a  monument  of  patient,  persevering  and 
profound  scholarship.  It  is  accounted  one  of  the  most 
faithful  and  finished  of  all  modern  missionary  versions. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ANCIENT   VERSIONS   OF   THE    BIBLE. 

i.  One  book  of  religion — the  Bible — has  been  valued 
and  loved  by  the  learned  and  unlearned,  by  priest  and 
people,  for  more  than  eighteen  centuries.  No  other 
sacred  book  has  been  so  deeply  or  so  widely  endeared  to 
the  human  heart.  There  is  no  other  book  with  a  history 
like  that  of  the  Bible.  In  the  early  centuries  of  Christian- 
ity, translations  of  the  Bible  into  the  vernacular  or  common 
speech  of  the  peoples  were  made  and  circulated  wherever 
the  gospel  gained  a  foothold  among  a  nation  or  a  people. 
Several  of  the  more  important  of  these  translations,  or  por- 
tions of  them,  have  been  preserved  to  our  times,  and  are 
of  value  in  establishing  the  early  and  often  the  true  reading 
of  the  original  copy  of  the  Christian  Scriptures.  Some  of 
these  versions  will  now  be  briefly  described. 

2.  The  Armenian. — The  gospel  was  introduced  into  Ar- 
menia from  Cappadocia ;  and  the  translations  of  the  Bible 
into  Armenian  were  probably  made  from  Greek  manuscripts 
obtained  from  some  portion  of  Asia  Minor.  At  first  the 
Armenian  disciples  may  have  used  Syriac  copies  of  the 
Scriptures  ;  but  early  in  the  fourth  century  they  had  a  writ- 
ten language,  formed  from  an  alphabet  of  thirty-six  letters. 
The  earliest  version  of  the  Scriptures  in  Armenian  appears 
to  have   been  made  from  the  Peshito  (Syriac).     Later  in 

(43) 


44  ANCIENT  VERSIONS  OP  THE  BIBLE. 

that  century  (431  to  450)  a  new  translation,  direct  from 
the  Greek,  was  suggested  by  Miesrob  and  Moses  Chorenen- 
sis,  and  was  completed  by  two  scholars,  Joseph  and  Eznak, 
who  went  to  Alexandria  to  perfect  their  knowledge  of  the 
Greek.  The  existing  manuscripts  of  this  version  are  not 
very  ancient,  but  they  contain  the  entire  Bible.  The  best 
printed  edition  is  by  Zohrab,  and  is  now  issued  by  the 
British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society. 

3.  The  Gothic. — The  Goths,  in  their  old  home  about 
Mcesia,  were  early  led  to  accept  Christianity.  Their  sec- 
ond bishop,  Ulphilas  (Ulfilas  or  Wulfilas),  348  A.  d., 
though  an  Arian,  translated  the  Bible  (except  I.,  II.  Sam. 
and  I.,  II.  Kings)  from  Greek  into  Gothic.  The  gospels  are 
placed  in  the  "western  "  order,  that  is,  Matthew,  John, 
Luke,  Mark.  Seven  manuscripts  containing  portions  of 
this  version  have  been  preserved  ;  but  they  are  fragmentary, 
large  gaps  occurring  and  missing  leaves  in  both  the  Old 
and  New  Testament  portions.  The  best-printed  editions 
are:  A.  Uppstrom,  Upsala,  1854-1868,  and  E.  Bernhardt, 
Halle,  1875, — tne  latter  being  the  Gothic  and  Greek,  with 
critical  notes. 

4.  The  Coptic  or  Egyptian  Versions. — Little  has  been 
definitely  known  of  these  ancient  Coptic  translations  until 
recently.  Three  are  known. in  three  different  dialects:  (1) 
The  Memphitic  or  Bahiric  dialect  of  lower  Egypt.  This 
translation  belongs  to  the  second  century.  There  are  in 
the  various  libraries  of  Europe  twenty-eight  manuscript 
copies  of  the  Gospels  in  the  Memphitic  dialect,  seventeen 
copies  of  the  Pauline  and  catholic  Epistles  and  the  Acts 
(the  Acts  follow  instead  of  precede  the  Epistles),  and  ten 
of  the  book  of  Revelation.  This  translation  is  regarded 
as  of  great  importance,  because  it  is  believed  to  indicate 


ANCIENT   VERSIONS   OF   THE    BIBLE.  45 

the  text  current  at  Alexandria,  free  from  many  corruptions 
prevailing  in  the  second  century.  (2)  The  Thebaic  or  Sa- 
hidic  version,  in  the  dialect  of  upper  Egypt,  also  exists  in 
manuscripts,  but  only  in  a  very  fragmentary  form.1  The 
best-printed  edition  of  the  Thebaic  translation  is  by  C.  G. 
Woide,  completed  by  Ford,  Oxford,  1799.  (3)  The  Bash- 
muric  or  Eleaarchian  translation,  probably  belonging  to 
the  third  century,  of  which  only  fragments  of  John's  Gos- 
pel and  of  the  Pauline  Epistles  have  been  found.  This 
version  is  based  upon  the  Thebaic,  the  Bashmuric  being  a 
modification  of  the  Thebaic  dialect,  and  the  Bashmuric 
translation  is  chiefly  useful  in  texts  where  the  Thebaic  is 
wanting. 

5.  An  Ethiopic  version  was  early  made  for  use  in  Abys- 
sinia, probably  in  the  fourth  century.  The  manuscript 
copies  of  this  version  are  not  very  ancient ;  but  the  Ethi- 
opic has  now  given  place  to  a  later  dialect,  the  Amharic, 
iiito  which  the  Bible  has  been  translated. 

6.  The  Syriac  Versions. — The  Syriac  or  Aramaean  be- 
longs to  the  Semitic  family  of  languages,  and  is  older  than 
the  patriarch  Jacob.  It  is  copious,  flexible  and  dignified, 
and  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  were  translated  into  that 
tongue  and  used  in  public  worship  from  the  second  century 
downward. 


1  These  ancient  Coptic  translations  show  that  the  hooks  then  in- 
cluded in  the  New  Testament  were  the  same  as  now,  except  the  Apoc- 
alypse. The  order,  however,  was  different ;  the  four  Gospels  were 
first,  but  usually  in  this  order — John,  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke;  then 
came  the  Pauline  Epistles,  including  that  to  the  Hebrews,  next  the 
catholic  or  general  epistles,  and  lastly  Acts.  In  some  of  the  manu- 
scripts the  book  of  Revelation  appears  at  the  end ;  but  there  are  lec- 
tionaries  or  Scripture  service  lessons  between  the  book  of  Acts  and 
the  book  of  Revelation.  This  would  indicate  that  Revelation  was  not 
admitted  to  the  New  Testament  in  the  opinion  of  those  who  made  the 


46  ANCIENT   VERSIONS   OF   THE   BIBLE. 

7.  There  are  four  versions  in  Syriac  : — (1)  The  Peshito 
{Pe-shit '-to)y  (or  Peshitto,  Peschito,  or  Peshitta),  meaning 
"simple  "  or  faithful,  so  called  from  the  character  of  the 
version.  In  its  present  form  it  belongs  to  the  third  or 
fourth  ceniury.  It  has  been  known  to  scholars  for  over 
three  centuries.1  (2)  The  Curetorian  is  a  fragment  of  the 
Gospels,  but  now  generally  conceded  to  be  the  earliest  of 
all  versions  in  Syriac.  It  was  found  in  a  convent  in  the 
desert,  seventy  miles  northwest  of  Cairo,  in  1842,  and 
published,  with  an  English  translation  by  Dr.  Cureton,  in 
1858,  and  with  three  added  leaves  (1871)  by  J.  R.  Crow- 
foot in  Greek,  London,  1870-72.  (3)  The  Philoxenian  or 
Harklean  was  a  Syriac  version  made  in  the  fifth  century  by 
Xenias  or  Philoxenus,  a  heretical  bishop  of  eastern  Syria. 
It  was  carefully  revised  by  Thomas  of  Harkel  or  Heraclea, 
616,  who  compared  it  with  some  ancient  Greek  copies. 
The  best  existing  manuscript  of  this  version  is  from  Mardin, 
and  belongs  to  the  Protestant  College  at  Beirut.  (4)  The 
Jerusalem  Syriac  is  an  evangelistary,  or  selections  from  the 
Gospels,  found  in  five  existing  manuscripts  in  the  Vatican 
at  Rome.     The  version  belongs  to  the  fifth  century. 

8.  The  Latin. — The  ancient  versions  of  the  Bible  in 
Latin  may  be  classed  in  two  groups: — (1)  Old  Latin;  (2) 
The  Vulgate,  by  Jerome,  in  its  varied  recensions.  The 
Old  Latin  translation  was  known  to  the  Latin  fathers,  as 
Tertullian,  Cyprian,  the  two  Hilarys,  Ambrose,  Jerome, 
Augustine,  Pelagius  and  others.  It  dates  back  to  the  mid- 
translation,  or  else  that  it  belonged  to  a  second  canon,  as  we  know  was 
the  case  for  a  time  with  some  of  the  shorter  epistles. 

1  The  best  printed  edition  in  England  is  by  the  British  and  Foreign 
Bible  Society,  and  by  Bagster.  A  better  American  edition  is  by  Dr. 
J.  Perkins,  Oroomiah,  1841,  and  New  York,  1874;  also  a  literal  trans- 
lation from  the  Syriac  Peshito,  by  Dr.  Murdock,  New  York,  1857. 


ANCIENT    VERSIONS  OF   THE    BIBLE,  47 

die  or  latter  half  of  the  second  century.  It  was  made 
from  the  Septuagint,  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  is  in  the 
rough  Latin  of  the  second  century,  which  lacks  classic  pol- 
ish, yet  is  not  without  vigor  and  terseness  of  expression. 

9.  Fragments  of  the  Old  Latin  translations  are  still 
extant,  and  indicate  three  variant  types  of  the  text — an 
African,  a  European,  and  one  of  the  character  which 
Augustine  commends  as  the  Itala.  Whether  all  these  forms 
are  based  upon  one  African  translation  or  on  different  in- 
dependent translations  is  an  unsettled  question.  This 
much  seems  to  be  generally  agreed  by  the  best  critics,  that 
the  earliest  form  of  the  Old  Latin  version  is  of  north  Afri- 
can origin.  From  thirty  to  forty  manuscripts  of  portions 
of  the  Old  Latin  version  are  known  to  be  in  existence.  A 
carefully-edited  and  printed  edition  of  these  Old  Latin 
versions,  in  a  satisfactory  form  for  general  use  among 
scholars,  is  a  thing  desired. 

10.  The  Vulgate. — Jerome,  one  of  the  most  learned  men  of 
hic  .ime,  urged  by  the  Roman  bishop  Damasus,  about  383 
a.d.,  undertook  a  thorough  revision  of  the  Old  Latin  ver- 
sions, that  he  might  make  a  Vulgate  (Vulgata)  or  Latin 
text  of  the  Bible  which  would  be  universally  accepted  by 
Latin-speaking  peoples.  His  work  of  revising  the  Old 
Latin  versions  led  Jerome  to  undertake  a  new  and  more 
faithful  translation  of  the  Old  Testament  from  the  Hebrew. 
He  spent  about  twenty  years  (385  to  405)  at  Bethlehem, 
the  town  in  which  our  Saviour  was  born,  in  these  labors.1 
Jerome's  version  was  not  at  first  regarded  with  favor;  but 
after  some   years  its  superior  merit   brought  it  into  general 

1  At  Bethlehem,  in  the  crypt  under  the  Church  of  the  Nativity,  is  a 
room  called  the  ••  Chapel  of  St  Jerome,'1  in  which  this  great  man  is 
said  to  have  pursued  his  studies  and  work  of  translating  the  Bible. 


48  ANCIENT   VERSIONS   OF   THE    BIBLE. 

use.  For  years  it  raised  a  howl  of  indignation.  Jerome 
was  irritated  by  the  attacks  of  the  ignorant  priests,  whom 
he  calls  bipedes  asellos,  "  two-legged  donkeys."  Long  after 
Jerome's  death  his  version  was  accepted,  and  iooo  years 
later  was  counted  superior  to  the  original  text !  The  Latin 
Bible  which  came  thus  into  use  as  Jerome's  version  was  in 
fact  a  composite  work.  The  Old  Testament,  excepting  the 
Psalms,  was  from  his  new  translation  made  from  the  He- 
brew. The  Psalms  were  his  revision  of  the  Old  Latin, 
based  not  upon  the  original  Hebrew  but  upon  the  Septua- 
gint.1  The  Apocrypha  was  also  from  the  Old  Latin  trans- 
lation, excepting  the  two  books  of  Judith  and  Tobit,  which 
were  from  Jerome's  new  version.  The  New  Testament 
books  were  revised  from  the  Old  Latin  version.  The  text 
became  so  corrupt  that  Charlemagne  about  802  directed 
Alcuin  to  collate  the  copies  and  revise  the  Latin  text. 

11.  The  Council  of  Trent,  1546,  decreed  what  books  were 
to  be  received  as  canonical,  and  that  the  text  of  the 
Latin  edition  was  authentic.  But  the  question  at  once 
arose,  Which  Latin  text,  and  which  edition  of  it,  is  the 
authentic  one  ?  Pope  Sixtus  V.  issued  a  revised  edition  of 
the  Vulgate  text  in  1590,  which  he  decreed  to  be  the  au- 
thoritative edition,  and  threatened  excommunication  against 
any  who  used  any  other.  Sixtus  died  that  year.  So  many 
errors,  however,  were  pointed  out  in  the  Sixtine  edition 
that  Bellarmin  proposed  to  issue  a  corrected  edition  in  Six- 
tus' name,  and  this  pious  fraud  was  actually  undertaken, 
and  in  the  new  edition  all  the  principal  blunders  in  the 


1  It  was  called  the  Roman  Psalter,  while  Jerome's  new  translation 
was  known  as  the  Gallican  Psalter.  The  former  was  retained  in  the 
Latin  Bibles  until  Pius  V.,  1566,  when  it  was  displaced  by  the  Gallican 
Psalter. 


ANCIENT   VERSIONS   OF   THE    BIBLE.  49 

former  edition  were  charged  to  the  printers  !  Clement 
VIII.  had  the  new  edition  of  the  Latin  text  prepared  with 
greater  care  and  issued  in  1592,  in  the  face  of  the  threat- 
ened anathema  of  his  predecessor,  Sixtus  V.1  This  Clem- 
entine text  is  the  standard  Roman  Catholic  Bible,  taking 
precedence  in  that  church  of  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  origi- 
nal texts  in  questions  of  doctrine  and  life.  A  critical  edi- 
tion of  Jerome's  Latin  version  is  wanting,  though  the 
materials  for  it  are  abundant. 

12.  The  Septuagint,  or  Greek  version  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, was  made  by  Hellenistic  Jews  of  Alexandria,  be- 
tween 285  and  247  B.C.  According  to  Jewish  tradition,  it 
was  made  by  seventy  or  seventy-two  elders  (hence  its  title ; 
Septuaginta,  or  seventy)  sent  from  Jerusalem ;  but  great 
obscurity  rests  upon  the  real  time  and  history  of  its  origin.2 
It  is  also  very  difficult  now  to  ascertain  precisely  what  was 
the  reading  of  the  original  Septuagint,  but  it  is  assumed 
that  the  text  we  have  is  in  the  main  that  current  in  the  days 
of  our  Lord.  From  this  version  Jesus  quotes,  and  so  do 
the  apostles.  It  was  the  accepted  Scriptures  of  the  dis- 
persed Jews,  and  is  the  basis  of  the  Greek  used  by  early 
Christian  writers.  The  Septuagint  is  in  the  main  faithful  to 
the  Hebrew  text,  although  it  cannot  be  said  to  be  minutely 
accurate,  judged  by  the  Hebrew  now  current,  and  some- 


1  These  are  known  as  the  Sixtine  or  Clementine  Latin  texts. 

2  The  importance  of  this  translation  is  apparent  not  merely  from  its 
great  antiquity,  which,  between  conflicting  Hebrew  readings,  indicates 
the  one  then  current,  but  also  from  the  fact  that  of  290  direct  quota- 
tions from  the  Old  Testament  in  the  New,  the  great  majority  agree  bet- 
ter with  the  Septuagint  than  with  the  Hebrew.  More  exactly,  accord- 
ing to  Turpie,  90  quotations  agree  with  the  Septuagint,  of  which  53 
also  agree  with  the  Hebrew ;  10  agree  with  the  Hebrew  but  not  with 
the  Septuagint ;  175  differ  from  both,  but  these  generally  are  nearer  to 
the  Septuagint  than  to  the  Hebrew. 


50  ANCIENT    VERSIONS   OF   THE   BIBLE. 

times  gives  a  paraphrase  rather  than  a  close  translation  of 
the  Hebrew  text.  It  was  freely  used  by  the  early  Christian 
fathers.  The  current  text  of  the  Greek  Scriptures  had  be- 
come corrupted  from  frequent  copying  during  several 
centuries.  In  order  to  attain  a  better  text,  Origen  (184- 
254)  edited  a  tetrapla,  or  fourfold  text,  and  later  on  his 
hexapla,  or  sixfold  Bible  text.  In  the  first  he  arranged  in 
parallel  columns  the  Hebrew,  the  SeptuagiHt  and  three 
other  Greek  versions  made  in  the  second  century  by  Aquila, 
Symmachus  and  Theodotion.  In  the  latter  he  added  three 
anonymous  Greek  translations,  numbered  fifth,  sixth  and 
seventh,  all  in  parallel  columns  in  order  to  show  the  true 
reading  and  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.1 

13.  The  Targums  is  the  general  term  for  the  Chaldee  or 
Aramaic  versions  and  paraphrases  of  portions  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Eight  are  now  extant,  of  which  three  are 
upon  the  Pentateuch,  two  on  Esther,  and  others  upon  the 
prophets,  poetical  books  and  other  portions  of  the  Old 
Testament.  These  are  generally  very  free  translations,  and 
often  diffuse  paraphrases.  The  so-called  Targum  ®f  Onke- 
los  on  the  Pentateuch  and  of  Jerushalmi  in  its  first  form 
are  the  most  literal  versions.  These  works  were  a  growth 
from  oral  traditions  and  teachings,  and  of  great  interest  to 
Old  Testament  students.  The  earliest  historic  instance  of 
a  targum  is  when  Ezra  read  the  law  to  the  returned  exiles, 
and  the  scribes  were  compelled  to  "give  the  sense  and 


1  Aquila  was  a  Jewish  proselyte  of  Pontus,  who  made  a  Greek  ver- 
sion of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  117-138  A.D.,  to  use  in  discussions  with 
the  Christians,  because  the  Septuagint  version  was  used  against  the 
Jews.  Theodotion  made  a  revision  of  the  Greek  version  of  the  Old 
Testament  about  the  same  period  as  the  work  by  Aquila,  and  his  ver- 
sion is  retained  in  Greek  Bibles.  The  version  by  Symmachus,  an 
Ebionite  disciple,  was  made  somewhat  later. 


ANCIENT    VERSIONS    OF   THE    BIBLE.  51 

cause  them  to  understand  the  reading,"  Neh.  8 : 8  From 
these  interpretations  the  targums  grew.  Their  present 
written  form  does  not  date  earlier  than  the  second  century 
of  our  era.  They  were  written  in  the  later  Hebrew  dialect, 
the  Aramaic. 


CHAPTER  V. 

ANCIENT   MANUSCRIPTS   OF   THE    BIBLE. 

i.  How  Written. — The  oldest  existing  copies  of  the 
books  of  the  New  Testament,  in  their  original  Greek,  are 
written  upon  fine  vellum,  made  from  the  skins  of  very 
young  calves.  Some  are  written  upon  parchment,  made 
from  the  skins  of  sheep  or  goats. 

The  Sinaitic  MS.  is  made  of  fine  skins  of  antelopes. 
The  leaves  of  this  MS.  are  so  large  that  the  skin  of  one 
antelope  would  make  only  two  leaves.  As  the  MS.  in  its 
present  fragmentary  state  has  346?  leaves,  and,  adding  the 
43  previously  discovered,  389^  leaves,  it  must  have  required 
195  antelopes  to  make  the  vellum  on  which  it  is  written  ! 
The  Vatican  MS.  is  written  upon  vellum  admired  by  all 
who  have  seen  it,  for  the  beauty  of  its  finish  and  texture. 
It  is  supposed  that  earlier  copies  of  the  New  Testament 
books  were  written  upon  less  durable  papyrus,  and  hence 
have  perished.  The  manuscript  copies  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  older  than  any  existing  written  copies  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  Hebrew;  but  the  oldest  MSS.  of  the  New 
Testament  contain  the  whole  or  large  portions  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  Greek. 

2.  Classes. — These  ancient  MSS.  of  the  New  Testament 
may  be  classified : 

I.  By  their  contents,  as  (1)  those  containing  the  whole 
(52) 


ANCIENT   MANUSCRIPTS   OF   THE   BIBLE.  53 

of  the  New  Testament ;  (2)  copies  containing  portions  only ; 
(3)  those  having  church  lessons. 

II.  By  their  supposed  age,  as  (1)  those  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury (the  oldest  now  known);  (2)  of  the  fifth  century ;  (3) 
of  the  sixth  century,  and  so  on. 

Or,  III.  By  the  style  of  the  writing,  as,  (1)  Uncials,  that  is 
those  written  in  capitals  ;  (2)  Cursives,  that  is,  those  writ- 
ten in  a  running  hand. 

More  recently  they  have  also  been  classified  by  critical 
scholars  according  to  their  genealogical  origin,  or  the 
source  from  which  the  text  of  each  MS.  was  derived. 
Thus  MSS.  of  the  New  Testament  are  divided  into 
Alexandrian,  Western  and  Neutral  groups,  to  which 
may  be  added  the  Syrian  and  pre-Syrian,  or  the  versions 
before  250  a.  d. 

3.  The  number  of  uncial  MSS.  of  the  New  Testament 
now  known  is  about  ninety,  and  of  cursives  is  between  one 
thousand  and  two  thousand.  Scrivener,  Intro.  3d  ed.  (1883), 
s<tys  97  uncials  and  1997  cursives;  Abbot  (1885)  says  92 
uncials  and  about  1600  cursives,  and  of  distinct  uncials 
about  85  ;  Dr.  Gregory,  in  Prolegomena  to  New  Testa- 
ment, says   88  uncials. 

4.  Divisions  of  the  Text. — In  the  earliest  manuscripts 
there  are  no  spaces  between  the  words,  and  no  marks  be- 
tween sentences  except  an  occasional  dot  at  the  top  of  the 
line.  But  there  are  divisions  into  paragraphs,  and  marks 
indicating  sections.  For  example,  in  the  Gospels  there  are 
numerals  marking  and  dividing  the  text  of  Matthew  into 
170  unequal  sections,  Mark  into  62,  Luke  into  150  and 
John  into  80.  Similar  sections,  though  not  as  ancient,  are 
found  in  the  Acts  and  Epistles. 

5.  Titloi. — In  other  MSS.  of  the  fifth  century  and  later 


54  ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS  OP  THE   BIBLE. 

there  are  divisions  into  sections  or  chapters,  called  rirXoi  = 
tit/oi,  as  the  title  of  the  section  is  given  with  its  number. 
These  differ  from  the  former  divisions,  for  in  the  Gospels 
they  uniformly' begin  with  what  we  would  regard  as  the 
second  section.  The  general  title  to  the  book  was  appar- 
ently sufficient  to  designate  the  first  section.  Of  these 
titloi  =  titles,  Matthew  has  68,  Mark  48,  Luke  83  and  John 
18.  There  was  a  similar  division  of  the  Acts  and  Epistles 
into  "headings"  or  chapters,  of  a  later  origin. 

6.  The  Ammonian  or  Eusebian  sections  of  the  Gospels 
was  another  and  different  grouping,  made  to  facilitate  the 
finding  of  the  different  passages  that  were  parallel  in  the 
four  Gospels ;  hence  some  were  long  and  some  very  short. 
John  19  :  6,  for  example,  is  divided  into  three  sections. 
These  sections  were  numbered  in  the  margin  consecutively 
from  the  beginning  of  each  Gospel.  Matthew  had  355 
such  sections,  Mark  (originally)  233,  Luke  342  and  John 
232.  Eusebius  divided  the  numbers  of  these  sections  into 
ten  tables  or  "  canons."  The  first,  in  four  columns,  notes 
the  sections  that  are  parallel  in  all  four  Gospels ;  the  next 
three,  the  sections  that  are  parallel  in  three  of  the  Gospels ; 
the  next  five  tables  note  the  sections  parallel  in  two  of  the 
Gospels  ;  the  last  table  gives  the  sections  peculiar  to  each 
Gospel. 

7.  Modern  Divisions. — These  ancient  divisions  of  the  New 
Testament  text  and  similar  divisions  of  the  text  of  the  Old 
Testament,  coupled  with  the  necessity  for  some  division  to 
facilitate  ready  and  accurate  reference,  led  to  the  modern 
division  of  the  Bible  into  chapters  and  verses.  The  chap- 
ter divisions  in  our  modern  Bibles  are  probably  due  to 
Langton,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (about  1220),  and  the 
versicular  divisions  to  Cardinal  Hugo  (about  1248).     The 


ANCIKNT    MANUSCRIPTS  OP  THE    BIBLE.  55 

English  Revised  Version  has  restored  the  more  ancient 
method  of  division  of  the  text  into  sections  or  paragraphs, 
but  has  preserved  the  modern  chapter-and-verse  numerals 
in  the  margin. 

8.  Uncial  Manuscripts. — Among  the  most  important  un- 
cial manuscripts  is  the  Sinaitic  (known  as  K),  found  by 
Prof.  Con  tantine  Teschendorf,  in  1859,  in  the  Convent  of 
St.  Catherine,  on  Mount  Sinai,  and  now  in  the  library  at 
St.  Petersburg,  Russia.  It  contains  the  whole  of  the  New 
Testament  in  Greek,  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  and  part  of 
the  Shepherd  of  Hermas,  and  a  large  part  of  the  Old  Tes- 

toth  ceYceBei^c 
MYCTHffONoce 

Fourth  Cent.     Codex  Sinaiticus. — 1  Tim.  3  :  16. 
to  tt]<;  evoeftetac  \  fivarrjpcov  [6e  late  corr.]  og  e. 

tament  in  the  Greek  version.  It  consists  of  346 \  leaves1 
of  very  fine  thin  vellum,  13*  inches  long  by  14*  inches 
v»ide.  The  text  is  written  with  four  columns  of  48  lines 
each  on  a  page,  except  in  the  poetical  books  of  the  Old 
Testament,  which  have  but  two  columns  on  a  page.  The 
words  have  no  spaces  between  them,  and  are  often  abbrevi- 
ated by  a  line  over  the  letters.  There  are  corrections  or 
alterations  by  later  hands  in  succession,  noticeable  from 
the  different  form  of  the  letters  and  different  shades  of 
inks,  so  that  Prof.  Tischendorf  distinguished  the  work  of 
ten  different  correctors.  A  fac-simile  edition  of  the  MS. 
was  printed  at  the  expense  of  the  emperor  of  Russia,  and 


1  To  these  are  to  be  added  43  leaves  found  in  1844  and  called  Codex 
Augustanus,  and  two  leaves  and  a  fragment  of  a  leaf  found  in  1853 
and  belonging  originally  to  this  Sinailic  MS.,  making  in  all  upwards  of 
391^  leaves. 


56  ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  THE   BIBLE. 

about  a  dozen  copies  came  to  the  United  States,  to  several 
important  libraries,  as  the  Astor,  Lenox  and  American 
Bible  Society  libraries.  The  MS.  belongs  to  the  fourth 
century,  and  Teschendorf  supposed  it  might  be  one  of  the 
fifty  copies  which  Constantine  had  prepared  in  331  a.  d. 

T    A€N6JriON£<po&OYN 


*J|f*T®* 


Fourth  Cent.     Codex  Vaticanus. — Mark  16:8. 
OTacig  Kac  ovdevi  ov  |  6ev  enrov  etyofiow  \  to  yap  '. 

9.  The  Vatican  manuscript  (known  as  B)  also  belongs  to 
the  fourth  century,  and  contains  most  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment in  Greek  and  the  New  Testament  to  Heb.  9:14.  It 
is  written  on  fine  vellum,  in  three  columns  of  42  lines  each 
to  a  page.  It  has  759  leaves,  10  by  io£  inches,  and  is  per- 
haps more  carefully  written  than  the  Sinaitic  MS.  It  is  be- 
lieved to  have  been  copied  in  Egypt,  and  was  brought  to 
Rome  in  1448.  Early  in  this  century  it  was  for  a  time  in 
Paris,  but  was  soon  restored  to  Rome,  and  is  kept  in  the 
Vatican  library.  This  MS.  also  shows  numerous  cor- 
rections by  different  hands.  Several  editions  of  it  have 
been  printed,  the  last  being  that  of'Tischendorf,  1869,  and 
of  Vercellone  and  Cozza,  1868-72.  There  is  another 
Vatican  MS.  B  (No.  2066),  containing  the  Book  of  Reve- 
lation, which  is  of  later  origin  and  belongs  to  the  eighth 


ANCIENT   MANUSCRIPTS   OP  THE    BIBLE.  57 

century.  The  Vatican  MS.  is  of  the  first  importance  in 
critical  study  of  the  New  Testament  text ;  and  the  Sinaitic 
ranks  next  in  value. 

10.  The  Alexandrian  manuscript  was  sent  from  the  Patri- 
arch of  Constantinople  as  a  present  to  Charles  I.  (1628),  and 
was  placed  in  the  British  Museum,  London,  in  1753.  It  is 
a  vellum  of  773  leaves,  12I  by  \o\  inches,  each  page  contain- 
ing two  columns  of  50  lines  each.  It  contains  nearly  the 
whole  of  the  Old  Testament  in  Greek,  and  of  the  New 
Testament  except  Matt.  1  to  25  :  26,  two  leaves  from  John's 
Gospel,  three  from  2  Corinthians,  and  portions  from  the 
edges  of  the  leaves,  carelessly  cut  away  in  binding,  Added 
to  it  are  the  first  Epistle  of  Clement  and  a  part  of  the  sec- 


N  AfXttM  NOXOTOCKAfOAorbCM 

ti  pocTONBN'iaiaCHNO\  o  roc. 

Fifth  Cent.     Codex  Alexandrinus. — John  1:1. 
Ev  apxv  rfv  °  toyog  nai  0  hoyoq  tjv  \  Trpoc  tov  6\_eo~\v\  nai  6\eo~\  qrjvo  Aoyof. 

ond  also.  It  was  probably  written  in  Alexandria  in  the 
fifth  century,  and  has  initial  letters,  and  the  first  four  lines 
of  each  column  of  the  first  page  of  Genesis  in  bright  ver- 
milion ink.  It  was  among  the  first  of  the  uncial  MSS. 
used  by  critical  scholars.  A  photographic  fac-simile  edition 
has  been  published  by  the  British  Museum,  1879-82. 

11.  The  Ephraem  manuscript  is  in  the  National  Library 
at  Paris,  France,  and  consists  of  209  leaves,  64  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  Greek  and  145  of  the  New.  It  was  brought 
to  Florence  from  the  East  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  is 
a  rescript  or  palimpsest  on  vellum ;  that  is,  the  old  writing 
(the  Bible  text)  has  been  partially  effaced  and  some  works 
4 


58  ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  THE   BIBLE. 

of  Ephraem  the  Syrian  were  written  over  it  in  the  twelfth 
century.  The  original  writing  was  known  to  Wetstein 
(1716),  and  edited  by  Tischendorf  (1843-45).  Unfortu- 
nately, large  gaps  occur  in  the  New  Testament  text,  so 
that  37  chapters  of  the  Gospels,  15  of  the  Acts,  45  chap- 
ters of  the  Epistles  and  1 1  of  Revelation  are  missing.  It 
belongs  to  the  fifth  century. 

12.  The  Greco-Latin  manuscript  of  Beza,  in  the  Cam- 
bridge library,  England,  contains  the  Gospels  and  the  Acts. 
These  are  written  on  vellum,  one  column  of  34  lines  on  a 
page,  the  left-hand  page  presenting  the  Greek  text  and  the 
opposite  right-hand  page  having  the  corresponding  Latin 
version.  The  great  scholar  and  reformer  Theodore  Beza 
says  he  found  the  MS.  in  Lyons  (1562),  and  he  gave  it  to 
Cambridge  University,  England,  in  1581.  The  text  has 
many  interpolations,  and  has  been  boldly  altered  and  cor- 
rected by  several  hands.  An  edition  has  been  edited  in 
ordinary  type  by  Scrivener  (1864),  which  represents  the 
MS.  line  for  line. 

13.  New  manuscripts. — It  is  quite  probable  that  new 
manucripts  of  importance  may  yet  be  discovered.  A  new 
uncial  MS.  is  reported  to  have  been  found  (1890)  in  the 
Arabic  library  of  Damascus.  It  is  a  parchment  having 
380^  leaves,  12}^  by  13^  inches,  and  containing  the  en- 
tire New  Testament  in  Greek,  part  of  the  Old  Testament, 
and  also  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  and  a  portion  of  the  Shep- 
herd of  Hermas.  The  MS.  is  written  with  four  columns 
of  50  lines  each  on  a  page,  and  from  the  description  seems 
like  a  companion  of  the  famous  Sinaitic  MS.  But  we  must 
wait  for  more  definite  information  about  it. 

The  remaining  uncial  MSS.  are  of  secondary  importance, 
and  do  not  call  for  particular  description. 


ANCIENT   MANUSCRIPTS   OF   THE   BIBLE.  59 

14.  The  Cursives  are  a  numerous  class  of  manuscripts, 
written  in  a  running  hand  on  vellum  or  parchment,  and 
some  of  them  on  cotton  or  linen  paper.  They  are  often 
richly  illuminated,  and  date  from  the  ninth  to  the  middle 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  when  they  were  superseded  by 
printed  copies  of  the  Bible.  About  30  of  them  are  known 
to  contain  the  entire  New  Testament ;  others  have  portions; 
as  600  the  Gospels,  300  the  Pauline  Epistles,  200  the 
Catholic  Epistles,  100  the  Book  of  Revelation,  while  there 
are  350  Evangelistaries,  that  is,  "lessons"  from  the  Gos- 
pels, and  so  on.  A  number  have  been  critically  collated, 
but  most  of  them  do  not  throw  any  important  light  upon 
our  present  text. 

15.  Hebrew  Manuscripts. — Written  copies  of  the  He- 
brew text  of  the  Old  Testament  are  of  comparatively  re- 
cent age,  the  oldest  of  the  Law  not  being  older  than  840 
a.d.  They  have  all  been  written  since  the  period  of  the 
Massorites.  The  rule  of  the  old  Talmudists  was  that  all 
faulty  or  imperfect  MSS.  of  their  sacred  books  should  be 
destroyed.  This  may  partially  account  for  the  scarcity  of 
them.  But  about  fourteen  hundred  different  Hebrew  MSS. 
have  been  found  and  examined  by  Hebrew  scholars — chiefly 
Kennicott  and  De  Rossi. 

16.  The  Hebrew  MSS.  are  of  two  classes:  those  pre- 
pared for  use  in  the  synagogue  services,  and  those  intended 
for  private  reading.  The  rules  for  preparing  the  manu- 
script copies  of  the  Old  Testament  to  be  used  in  public 
worship  were  many  and  very  strict.  The  parchment  must 
be  made  by  a  Jew,  from  the  skin  of  an  animal  that  was 
ceremonially  clean.  The  writing  must  be  in  columns  ex- 
actly equal  in  length.  If  more  than  three  words  were  off 
the  line,  the  whole  work  must  be  thrown  aside.     It  must  be 


60  ANCIENT  MANUSCRIPTS  OF  THE   BIBLE. 

written  with  a  black  ink  made  according  to  a  specific  rec- 
ipe, and  the  forms  of  the  letters  were  minutely  specified, 
as  also  the  spaces,  points  and  use  of  the  pen.  The  work 
must  be  carefully  revised  within  thirty  days  after  the  copy 
was  completed,  and  if  then  there  was  a  letter  wanting  in  a 
word,  or  if  one  letter  touched  another,  the  manuscript  was 
condemned.  Manuscripts  for  private  use  were  subject  to 
less  rigorous  rules.  Although  these  rules  must  have  been 
burdensome  to  copyists,  they  were  very  effective  in  promot- 
ing the  preservation  of  a  purer  text  of  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures. 

17.  The  Hebrew  Text. — It  is  not  easy  to  determine  the 
precise  reading  of  the  text  of  the  Old  Testament  for  the 
reasons  already  stated.  It  was  formerly  supposed  that  in 
Hebrew  the  words  were  written  continuously,  as  in  the  an- 
cient Greek  manuscripts,  but  the  discovery  of  the  ancient 
writing  on  the  Moabite  stone  indicates  that  this  was  not  so. 
The  words  on  the  Moabite  stone  are  separated  by  points, 
and  the  text  is  separated  into  parts  or  verses  by  vertical 
strokes.  There  are  about  7000  words  in  the  old  Hebrew 
vocabulary. 

1 8.-  The  Massorah  is  a  collection  of  critical  and  other  notes 
relating  to  the  Hebrew  text  of  the  Old  Testament.  These 
were  intended  to  preserve  the  text  in  a  certain  fixed  charac- 
ter. The  notes  of  the  Massorites  referred  to — (1)  What  is  in 
the  text?  (2)  What  should  be  in  the  text?  They  counted 
the  letters ;  they  marked  the  wauv  in  Lev.  1 1 :  42  as  the 
middle  letter  in  the  Pentateuch.  They  noted  that  the  let- 
ter aleph  (A)  occurs  42,377  times,  and  beth  (B)  35,288 
times,  and  so  on  of  each  letter  in  the  Hebrew  alphabet. 
They  noted  when  a  word  occurred  only  once,  and  a  multi- 
tude of  other  minute  points  about  the  text. 


ANCIENT    MANUSCRIPTS   OK   THE    BIBLE.  61 

But  in  making  a  new  copy,  they  sometimes  found  a  word 
in  the  written  copy  before  them,  which  they  had  reason 
to  believe  was  incorrect.  They  would  not  alter  it,  but  they 
would  write  in  the  margin  the  consonants  of  the  word  they 
believed  to  be  the  right  one.  Then  they  would  add  under 
the  word  in  the  text  the  vowel  points  of  the  right  word 
which  they  had  written  in  the  margin.  The  word  in  the 
text  they  called  Kethibh — "  What  is  written  ;  "  the  word 
in  the  margin  Keri — "  What  must  be  read."  The  ancient 
Hebrew  was  written  without  vowels.  The  vowel  points 
were  the  invention  of  the  Massorites  between  500  and  1000 
a.d.  to  represent  and  stereotype,  as  it  were,  the  traditional 
reading  of  the  text  which  had  come  down  to  their  time. 
Hebrew  can  be  read,  though  with  greater  difficulty,  without 
vowel  points,  or  accents. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   NEW   TESTAMENT  :    HOW   AND    WHEN    ONE   BOOK. 

i.  The  Book  a  Growth. — The  New  Testament  was  a 
growth.  The  gathering  of  the  separate  books  into  one 
volume  was  a  gradual  process.  The  books  to  be  excluded 
and  those  to  be  included  in  the  collection  were  not  selected 
by  the  decree  of  any  church  council,  nor  decided  by  an 
apostle  or  apostolic  men  ;  nor  was  the  collection  the  result 
of  any  single  inspired  act  of  a  Christian  Father  or  scholar, 
nor  of  a  local  body  of  believers,  like  the  church  at  Antioch, 
Jerusalem  or  Rome. 

2.  The  Result  of  a  General  Agreement. — The  collection 
of  the  various  writings  into  one  book,  now  called  the  New 
Testament,  was  the  result  of  a  general  agreement  among 
all  early  Christians  scattered  over  the  then  known  civilized 
world.  The  line  between  those  writings  which  were  re- 
garded "sacred"  and  of  divine  authority,  and  those  that 
were  "apocryphal,"  was  sharply  drawn  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury. The  persecution  of  Christians  under  Diocletian  (a.d. 
303)  was  directed  against  their  sacred  books  as  well  as 
against  their  faith  and  person.  The  order  was  to  burn  all 
copies  of  their  Scriptures,  and  Christians  were  forced  to 
give  them  up  or  be  condemned  themselves.  Some  gave  up 
their  Scriptures, and  were  branded  as  traditores  (traitors)  by 
their  fellow-disciples.  Others  apparently  complied  by  giv- 
ing up  heretical  pr  apocryphal  writings,  and  thus  escaped 
(62) 


HOW    AND    WHEN   ONE    BOOK.  63 

the  censure  of  the  church.  This  required  a  definite  agree- 
ment among  Christians  respecting  what  were  and  what  were 
not  Scriptures  of  divine  authority. 

3.  A  Testing  Process. — Such  an  agreement  was  not 
reached  at  once,  nor  without  severely  testing  a  few  of  the 
writings  finally  admitted,  as  Hebrews  in  the  western  church, 
and  seven  books  (James,  Jude,  2  Peter,  2  and  3  John,  He- 
brews and  Revelation)  by  some  in  the  eastern  church.  But 
by  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  objections  and  doubts 
respecting  those  books  were  silenced.  The  Latin  church 
of  the  north  also  concurred  in  the  same  list  of  sacred  books, 
and  the  collection  as  we  now  have  it  was  universally  re- 
garded as  closed.1 

4.  The  Tests. — This  collection  remained  "closed  "  un- 
til the  Reformation,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  when  Luther 
and  some  of  the  reformers  revived  doubts  in  respect  to  the 
antilegotnena  books,  because  of  the  doctrines  they  were 
.apposed  to  teach.  Yet  Protestant  Christians  have  with 
great  unanimity  accepted  the  strict  collection  of  sacred 
books  as  it  was  accepted  and  "closed"  by  the  early  Chris- 
tian church  in  the  third  and  fourth  centuries. 

The  crucial  tests  which  a  book  must  pass  before  it  could 
be  accepted  as  of  divine  authority  do  not  come  within  the 
scope  of  these  papers.  The  purpose  here  is  to  state,  histo- 
rically, what  writings  were  accepted.  It  may  be  proper, 
however,  to  add  that  Protestants  require  more  than  the 
external  testimony  of  the  church  to  certify  what  writings 
are  sacred  and  of  divine  authority.  Thus  Luther  against 
Eck  said,  "A  council  cannot  make  that  to  be  of  Scripture 


1  See  Weiss,  Intro.,  vol.  i.  p.  119  ff. ;   Schaff,  Hist.  Christn.  Church, 
vol.  iii.  p.  608  ff. ;   Eusebius,  H.  E.K  bk.  iii.  25,  bk.  vi.  25. 


64  THE  new  testament: 

which  is  not  by  nature  Scripture."  Calvin  called  it  "a 
most  pernicious  error  "  to  hold  "  that  the  Scriptures  have 
only  so  much  weight  as  is  conceded  to  them  by  the  suffrages 
of  the  church;  as  though,"  he  adds,  "the  eternal  and  in- 
violable truth  of  God  depended  on  the  arbitrary  will  of 
men."  (Inst,  i  :  7.)  The  Helvetic,  Gallican,  Anglican, 
Scotch  and  Westminster  Confessions  uniformly  maintain 
this  principle  respecting  the  Scriptures.  The  test  of  a  book 
to  a  place  in  the  Scriptures  may  be  stated  as  threefold  : 

(1)  external  evidence,  as  the  historic  testimony  of  the  church ; 

(2)  internal  evidence  from  the  book  itself,  determined  in 
part  by  the  consensus  of  Christian  scholarship ;  and  (3)  wit- 
ness of  the  Spirit  to  the  truth  and  authority  of  the  word  in 
the  heart  of  believers.  See  2d  Helvetic  Conf.,  chaps,  i., 
ii.  ;  Gallican  Conf.,  art.  iv. ;  Belgian,  art.  v.  ;  Thirty-nine 
Articles,  art.  vi.  ;  Scotch  Conf.,  1560,  art.  xix.  ;  Westmin- 
ster Conf.,  art.  i.,  §  2-5  ;  Reuss,  Hist.  Canon,  313. 

5.  Fresh  Examination. — Biblical  study  is  taken  up  afresh 
with  each  new  generation  of  scholars ;  and  the  object  is  to 
search  for  the  external  and  internal  evidence  concerning 
each  New  Testament  book.  The  decision  depends  in  part 
upon  the  test  of  admission  to  the  collection.  The  tendency 
is  to  make  this  test  apply  not  alone  to  what  is  apostolic, 
but  to  include  what  belongs  to  apostolic  times  and  was  at- 
tested by  the  general  religious  consciousness  of  early  Chris- 
tians. 

6.  Formation  in  the  Western  Church. — In  marking  the 
process  of  gathering  apostolic  writings  into  one  New  Tes- 
tament, let  it  be  noticed  that  councils  and  the  great  Chris- 
tian Fathers  did  not  decide  nor  so  strongly  discuss  what 
writings  ought  to  be  included,  as  declare  what  in  fact  were 
accepted  and  included  among  those  of  divine  authority.    It 


HOW   AND   WHEN    ONE    BOOK.  65 

appears,  however,  that  generally,  early  Christians  devoutly 
applied  substantially  the  same  principles  to  test  the  nature 
of  each  book  of  the  New  Testament  as  later  Protestant 
Christians  have  applied.  The  early  Christians  further  re- 
quired that  the  books  must  be  written  by  an  apostle  or 
apostolic  men,  and  must  have  been  adopted  for  reading  in 
public  service. 

In  the  western  church  all  the  writings  now  in  the  New 
Testament  were  readily  acknowledged,  except  Hebrews. 
The  hesitation  in  respect  to  Hebrews  sprang  largely  from 
the  uncertainty  as  to  the  author.  Some  held  that  it  was 
written  by  Paul,  but  many  doubted  its  Pauline  authorship. 
The  frequent  contact  of  western  with  eastern  Christians, 
however,  and  the  studies  of  Origen,  Ambrose,  Augustine, 
Rufinus  and  Jerome,  led  to  the  general  acceptance  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  in  the  western  church  about  the 
close  of  the  fourth  century,  and  the  New  Testament  col- 
lection was  "closed"  as  we  now  have  it.  The  West  had 
no  desire  to  include  other  writings  beyond  these  in  the 
Scriptures.     See  Weiss,  Intro.,  vol.  i.  p.  137. 

7.  Formation  in  the  Eastern  Church. — It  was  a  more  dif- 
ficult process  to  perfect  the  collection  of  New  Testament 
writings  in  the  East.  At  a  very  early  period  at  least  twenty 
books  were  admitted  without  question.  These  were  some- 
times called  homolegomena,  that  is,  "acknowledged." 
The  remaining  seven  books  were  referred  to  as  antilegomena, 
that  is,  "objected  to,"  meaning  that  some  were  uncertain 
whether  they  had  a  right  to  a  place  in  the  collection  or 
not. 

Eusebius  wrote  a  history  of  the  church  in  the  fourth 
century.  In  his  narrative  of  the  first  and  second  centuries 
he  gives  a  statement  of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament. 


66  THE  new  testament: 

He  asserts  that  twenty  books  were  acknowledged  without 
question.  Some  hesitated  to  accept  Revelation,  "  but 
others  rank  it  among  the  genuine. ' '  Among  other  antilegom- 
ena,  or  books  that  were  questioned,  although  he  says 
"they are  well  known  and  approved  by  many,"  he  men- 
tions James,  Jude,  2  Peter,  2  and  3  John — in  all  five.  He 
then  refers  to  several  books  as  spurious — as  the  Acts  of  Paul, 
Shepherd  of  Hernias,  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  Revelation  of 
Peter,  and  Institutions  of  the  Apostles.  When  Eusebius 
comes  to  the  period  of  Origen,  he  quotes  the  testimony  of 
that  Father,  that  the  Revelation  of  John  and  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  were  then  accepted,  but  reports  that  some 
still  have  doubts  respecting  2  Peter  and  2  and  3  John,  al- 
though he  implies  that  the  many  receive  them  as  genuine 
portions  of  Scripture.     H.  E.  vi.  25. 

8.  Early  Catalogue  of  New  Testament  Books. — In 
the  writings  that  have  been  preserved  of  the  early  Chris- 
tian Fathers  of  the  first  four  centuries,  not  less  than  eight 
or  ten  catalogues,  more  or  less  complete,  of  the  books  of 
the  New  Testament  are  given,  and  scores  of  writers  quote 
from  the  New  Testament  books  as  of  divine  authority.1 
When  it  is  considered  how  very  small  a  portion  of  those 
early  writings  has  come  down  to  us,  this  evidence  will  be 
counted  of  great  value.  Augustine  gives  a  full  list  corre- 
sponding to  those  now  accepted,  as  do  Athanasius,  Jerome 
and  Eusebius.  Some  of  these  omit  Revelation,  and  some 
Hebrews  also.  In  all  the  Christian  writings  of  importance 
belonging  to  that  early  period  that  have  come  down  to  us, 
the  books  of  the  New  Testament  are  referred  to,  quoted  or 
accepted  as  sacred  and  of  divine  authority.     The  citations 

1  See  Larduer's  works. 


HOW    AND   WHEN   ONE   BOOK.  67 

by  some  of  these  early  writers,  as  Justin  Martyr  of  the  sec- 
ond century,  and  Origen,  would  fill  a  volume.  These  ref- 
erences and  quotations  are  widely  distributed,  including 
writers  of  each  century,  from  those  of  Clemens  Romanus 
and  Ignatius  of  the  first  century  to  those  of  Augustine, 
Chrysostom  and  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  near  the  close  of  the 
fourth  century. 

9.  Process  of  Forming  the  Collection. — The  beginning  and 
the  steps  in  the  process  of  gathering  the  sacred  writings 
into  one  book  of  divine  authority  rest  in  some  obscurity. 
Yet  the  main  features  are  indicated  in  the  fragmentary 
works  of  contemporary  writers,  and  accord  with  similar 
known  facts  of  history. 

While  the  apostles  were  proclaiming  the  gospel,  Chris- 
tians looked  to  them  for  authoritative  instruction,  and  did 
not  feel  the  need  of  written  teachings  upon  matters  of  faith 
and  belief.  Yet  Paul  wrote  brief  instructions  to  the 
churches  he  had  planted  at  Thessalonica  and  in  Galatia, 
which  are  now  generally  acknowledged  to  be  the  earliest 
written  books  in  the  form  found  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  date  from  about  the  middle  of  the  first  century.1  Most 
of  the  books  have  internal  evidence  that  they  were  written 
before  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  a.d.  70 ;  that  all  of  them  date 
before  the  end  of  the  first  century  has  been  successfully 
proven.     Some  critical  scholars  of  the  destructive  school 


1  Papias,  of  Hierapolis,  in  the  early  part  of  the  second  century, 
speaks  of  fttft?ua — books  from  which  the  commands  of  the  Lord  might 
be  known — and  alludes  to  a  history  written  by  Mark,  and  a  collection 
of  "sayings"  in  Hebrew  made  by  Matthew.  Even  the  epistles  of 
Barnabas  and  of  Clement  clearly  have  statements  in  almost  the  exact 
words  of  Matthew.  The  second  epistle  of  Clement  and  the  Didache 
have  clear  evidence  of  the  influence  of  Luke's  Gospel.  Compare 
Weiss,  Intro.,  i.  38,  39, 


68  THE  NEW  testament: 

who  have  sought  to  maintain  a  later  date  have  been  forced 
to  abandon  their  position  and  concede  a  date  not  far  from 
the  close  of  the  first  century. 

As  the  number  of  Christians  increased,  and  became  too 
numerous  for  the  apostles  and  their  immediate  disciples  to 
instruct  orally,  there  was  a  necessity  for  writings  of  authority 
to  preserve  the  church  in  purity  and  prevent  serious  here- 
sies and  unbelief.  In  fact,  history  tells  us  that  divisions 
and  heretical  views  did  prevail  in  many  quarters,  and  even 
that  spurious  works  were  written  and  circulated  under  the 
cover  of  apostolic  names.  The  true  believers,  therefore, 
*  gathered  the  genuine  writings  of  the  apostolic  age,  and  the 
New  Testament  collection  began  to  be  formed.  In  the 
second  century,  Christian  writers,  as  Dionysius  of  Corinth 
and  Theophilus  of  Antioch  (a.d.  180),  refer  to  the  "Script- 
ures of  the  Lord"  as  of  the  same  authority  as  the  Old 
Testament.  The  testimony  of  history  is  clear  that  twenty 
books,  comprising  eight-ninths  of  the  entire  New  Testa- 
ment, were  thus  generally  accepted  as  Holy  Scripture  by 
the  early  Christians  from  170  a.d.  and  onward. 

10.  Completion  of  the  New  Testament. — Although  the 
other  seven  books  already  mentioned  were  more  slow  in 
securing  universal  acknowledgment,  yet  they  were  finally 
so  accepted,  while  others,  as  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  and 
the  Shepherd  of  Hermas,  were  rejected.  The  sharp  perse- 
cutions which  the  early  Christians  endured,  called  for  a 
most  careful  and  devout  spiritual  testing  of  every  writing ; 
for  the  acceptance  of  a  work  as  "sacred"  and  of  divine 
authority  might  put  their  lives  in  jeopardy.  It  was  only 
natural  that  some  should  hesitate  to  accept  a  few  books, 
perhaps  less  known  from  their  small  size  or  the  peculiar 
character  of  their  contents  than  were  the  other  books.     It 


HOW   AND   WHEN   ONE   BOOK.  69 

is  not  inconsistent  with  this  natural  process  of  gathering  the 
books  of  the  New  Testament  to  hold,  as  some  do,  that  the 
Gospels  and  Acts  were  early  formed  into  one  collection,  to 
which  the  apostolic  teachings  were  added.  Nor  is  it  im- 
probable that  these  apostolic  epistles  were  circulated  by 
themselves  for  a  brief  period.  But  that  they  were  finally 
accepted  in  the  face  of  such  circumstances  is  strong  proof 
of  their  title  to  a  place  in  the  New  Testament.  The 
Council  of  Carthage  (397  a.d.)  declared  that  "besides  the 
canonical  Scriptures,  nothing  [is  to]  be  read  in  the  church 
under  the  title  of  divine  Scriptures."  It  then  adds  a  list 
of  the  books  accepted  as  canonical,  which  besides  the  Old 
Testament  includes  the  twenty-seven  New  Testament  books 
and  no  others. 

In  this  gradual  process  of  sifting  out  of  the  mass  of  writ- 
ings of  the  apostolic  period,  and  of  testing  and  settling  which 
were  of  divine  authority,  we  find  that  while  several  books 
were  on  the  line  of  doubt  and  some  were  rejected,  only 
seven  of  the  New  Testament  books  were  ever  on  that  line, 
and  that  these  stood  the  test  and  were  finally  admitted. 
The  chief  hesitation  was  over  five  of  these  books,  compris- 
ing only  about  one-thirty-sixth  part  of  the  entire  New 
Testament. 

11.  Attested  by  the  Church  and  the  Spirit. — The  conclu- 
sion is  that  the  great  body  of  early  Christians,  the  general 
church  of  Jesus  Christ,  of  every  speech,  East  and  West, 
Syrian,  Asiatic,  African  and  European,  devoutly  seeking 
to  know  the  mind  of  Christ,  was  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God 
to  fix  upon  these  twenty-seven  books  and  no  others  as  the 
New  Testament  Scriptures  having  divine  authority  as  the 
word  of  God.  This  is  far  more  satisfactory,  and  gives  us 
a  much  stronger  attestation  and  assurance  of  the  purity 


70  THE   NEW  TESTAMENT. 

and  authority  of  this  collection  as  the  word  of  God,  than  if 
it  had  been  made  and  decreed  by  a  church  council,  or  only 
by  the  early  Christian  Fathers,  as  Augustine,  Jerome,  Ter- 
tullian,  Origen,  Irenseus,  Cyril,  Justin  Martyr  or  Polycarp. 
They  testify  that  the  church  universal,  guided  by  the  Spirit, 
did  receive  these  books  as  the  word  of  God ;  and  thus  the 
promise  of  Christ  to  the  apostles  was  fulfilled :  "  When  he, 
the  Spirit  of  truth,  is  come,  he  shall  guide  you  into  all  the 
truth"  (John  16:  13,  Revised  Version). 


CHAPTER  VII. 

WRITERS  AND  COMPOSITION  OF   THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  BOOKS. 

i.  Variety  in  Writing. — All  the  books  now  in  the  New 
Testament  were  extant  and  widely  accepted  as  of  divine 
authority  within  one  hundred  years  of  the  apostolic  era. 
The  collection  was  "  closed  "  and  universally  accepted  as 
"Holy  Scriptures,"  of  equal  rank  and  authority  with  the 
Old  Testament,  within  two  centuries  after  the  apostolic 
founding  of  Christian  churches. 

The  twenty-seven  New  Testament  books  were  written  by 
eight  or  nine  different  writers.  They  had  widely  different 
temperaments,  traits  of  character  and  physical  circumstan- 
ces, and  had,  moreover,  widely  different  modes  and  degrees 
of  educational  training. 

Paul  was  the  finished  Jewish  university  student,  a  master 
of  logic  and  of  argument.  Luke  was  the  Greek  medical 
scholar ;  Matthew  the  orderly,  practical  man  of  business, 
conversing  with  equal  ease  and  grace  in  Aramaic  and  Greek ; 
while  John  was  the  well-to-do  fisherman,  earnest,  medita- 
tive, the  man  to  make  a  profound  Christian  philosopher 
when  the  opportunity  came. 

More  definitely  then,  the  questions  before  us  are  :  When, 
by  whom,  under  what  circumstances,  and  with  what  pur- 
pose, were  the  twenty-seven  books  of  the  New  Testament 
originally  written  ? 

2.  Date  of  the  Books. — The  thirteen  Pauline   Epistles 

(71) 


72  WRITERS   AND   COMPOSITION  OF 

(excepting  those  to  individuals)  were  among  the  earliest  of 
the  present  written  books  of  the  New  Testament.  They 
may  all  be  safely  placed  within  a  limit  of  fifteen  years, 
from  a.d.  52  to  a.d.  67. 

The  date  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  and  of  the  Acts  may 
with  much  confidence  be  placed  within  the  ten  years  from 
a.d.  60  to  a.d.  70.  Within  the  same  period  may  be  safely 
placed  the  pastoral  Epistles  of  Paul,  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews, and  the  general  Epistles  of  James,  Peter,  and  Jude. 

The  Gospel  of  John  and  his  other  writings — three  Epis- 
tles and  the  Revelation — belong  to  the  last  quarter  of  the 
first  century,  the  Gospel  probably  dating  earliest,  from  85 
to  90,  the  Epistles  next,  and  the  Revelation  last,  from  90  to 
100  a.d. 

3.  Writers  of  the  Books. — The  names  of  eight  of  the 
writers  of  twenty-six  of  the  New  Testament  books  are  cer- 
tainly known.  Six  of  the  writers  thus  named  have  been 
identified  beyond  reasonable  question.  Concerning  two 
of  them,  James  and  Jude,  it  is  not  yet  agreed  which  of  the 
several  persons  called  James,  nor  which  of  those  called 
Jude  or  Judas,  is  the  author  of  the  respective  epistles  bear- 
ing these  names. 

In  eighteen  of  the  New  Testament  books  the  writers  dis- 
tinctly state  their  names  in  the  body  of  their  respective 
books.  In  nine  of  the  books  the  name  of  the  writer  is  not 
given  in  the  works  themselves.  The  authors  of  the  nine 
must  be  ascertained,  if  at  all,  from  other  sources,  such  as 
the  historic  testimony  of  the  early  Christians  immediately 
following  the  apostolic  period,  and  the  internal  evidences 
found  in  the  books  themselves.  For  example,  the  book 
may  contain  hints  pointing  to  the  identity  of  the  writer, 
such  as  are  given  in  John  21  :  24;  with  20  :  31 ;   13  :  23, 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT   BOOKS.  73 

and  in  the  "  we  "  sections  of  Acts  21:1;  27  :  1,  compared 
with  Acts  1  :  1  and  Luke  1  :  3.  The  structure,  style  and 
topics  of  a  book,  by  agreeing  with  what  is  known  of  the 
character  and  circumstances  of  the  person  whom  history 
indicates  as  the  writer,  may  confirm  the  authorship. 

4.  The  Gospels  and  the  Acts  do  not  give  the  names 
of  their  respective  authors.  Historical  testimony  from  the 
first  half  of  the  second  century  declares  that  the  first  Gos- 
pel was  written  by  Matthew,  one  of  the  twelve,  and  who 
was  first  called  Levi.  Papias  (a.d.  130-160)  says,  ''Mat- 
thew composed  his  history  [of  our  Lord]  in  the  Hebrew 
dialect,  and  everyone  translated  it  as  he  was  able."1 
Irenaeus  makes  a  similar  statement,  adding  that  the  Gospel 
was  written  while  the  apostles  were  preaching  in  Rome. 

5.  But  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  as  we  now  have  it,  reads 
like  a  Greek  original.  Certain  passages  in  which  it  agrees 
with  Mark  and  Luke  indicate  that  the  writer  used  a  Greek 
source.  How  can  it  be  that  the  Gospel  was  written  in  He- 
brew, and  yet  our  Greek  copy  not  be  a  translation  ?  An 
answer  is  not  difficult.  Matthew,  as  a  tax  collector,  would 
become  familiar  with  Aramaic  and  Greek.  For  Hebrews, 
he  would  naturally  have  first  written  his  Gospel  in  Aramaic. 
Then  the  Hellenistic  Christians  would  desire  it  in  Greek, 
and  he  wrote  it  in  Greek  also  for  them.  The  Hebrew  copy 
has  perished,  and  the  Greek  alone  has  been  preserved. 
There  is  a  similar  parallel  in  the  writings  of  Josephus  in 
the  same  era.  His  history  of  the  Jewish  wars  was  first 
written  in  Aramaic,  but  afterwards  in  Greek.  The  Ara- 
maic copy  has  perished ;  the  one  in  Greek  has  been  pre- 
served to  our  time. 

1  Eusebius,  H.  E.  3  :  39. 


74  WRITERS   AND  COMPOSITION  OF 

6.  Historic  testimony  has  uniformly  fixed  upon  Mark  as 
the  author  of  the  second  Gospel.1  Nor  is  there  any  reason- 
able doubt  that  he  is  the  same  as  John  Mark,2  the  son  of 
Mary,  at  whose  house  Peter  found  the  disciples  praying  in 
Jerusalem  (Acts  12  :  12).  His  Gospel  is  frequently  quoted 
by  Justin  Martyr  and  Irenaeus.  The  latter  says,  "  Mark, 
the  disciple  and  interpreter  of  Peter,  himself  also  wrote  and 
handed  on  to  us  what  Peter  had  preached." 

7.  That  the  third  Gospel  and  the  Acts  were  written  by  the 
same  hand  is  fairly  proven  by  the  opening  sentences  of  the 
books  themselves  (compare  Luke  1  :  3  with  Acts  1  :  1),  and 
by  the  construction  and  style  of  the  two  treatises.  That 
Luke  the  physician  and  companion  of  Paul  is  the  writer, 
history  testifies,  and  the  circumstantial  evidence  derived 
from  the  books  and  what  we  know  of  Luke  confirm  that 
testimony. 

8.  The  Fourth  Gospel. — The  authorship  of  the  fourth 
Gospel  was  for  years  the  chief  object  of  attack  by  skeptical 
critics.  If  they  could  prove  that  to  be  not  genuine,  or  not 
trustworthy,  they  could  then  hope  to  destroy  the  other  his- 
toric foundations  of  Christianity.  They  signally  failed. 
That  the  apostle  John  was  the  writer  of  that  Gospel  has 
been  established  against  the  severest  and  strongest  critical 
objections. 

The  authenticity  of  the  Gospel  has  been  established  by 
the  fact  of  the  general  acceptance  of  it  in  the  last  part  of 
the   second   century,    by   citations   from   it   as   Apostolic 


1  Papias  states  what  John  the  Presbyter  said,  "  Mark  being  the  inter- 
preter of  Peter,  whatsoever  he  recorded  he  wrote  with  great  accuracy," 
etc.  (Eusebius,  H.  E.  3  :  39). 

2  "  Without  doubt  he  is  identical  with  John  Mark  "  (Weiss,  Intro  , 
2  :  256). 


THE  NEW   TESTAMENT   BOOKS.  75 

Memoirs  of  Christ  by  Justin  Martyr,  by  its  use  among 
various  Gnostic  sects,  and  by  evidence  attached  to  the  book 
itself.  See  John  21 :  24,  25. 1  In  the  face  of  this  irrefra- 
gable evidence,  the  efforts  to  deny  that  John  wrote  the 
fourth  Gospel,  because  a  plain  fisherman  could  not  be 
fitted  to  write  such  a  book,  or  could  not  be  the  author  of 
the  book  of  Revelation  and  of  so  dissimilar  a  work  as  the 
Gospel,  are  shallow  reasonings,  or  mere  "  begging  the 
question  "  under  color  of  specious  argument.  Few  would 
believe  a  priori  that  a  poor  tinker  like  Bunyan  could  have 
written  the  most  famous  uninspired  book  in  the  world,  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress ;  yet  no  sane  person  doubts  that  Bunyan 
did  write  it.  And  who  can  doubt  that  the  apostle  John, 
taught  three  years  by  a  divine  Teacher,  followed  by  a  long 
life  of  study,  observation  and  experience  in  Christian 
truth,  and  guided  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  could  write  the  Gos- 
pel ascribed  to  him,  and  that  he  would  also  possess  versa- 
tility enough  to  write  a  work  as  different  from  the  Gospel  as 
Revelation  ?  Literary  writers  on  secular  topics  and  of  far 
less  training  and  experience  show  as  wide  a  versatility.  It 
is  unscientific  and  puerile  to  urge  that  a  Christian  writer 
with  the  advantages  and  experience  history  assures  us  that 
John  possessed,  and  with  the  added  power  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  was  without  equal  versatility.  The  writer  of  that 
Gospel  was  a  Palestinian  Jew,  an  eye-witness  of  the  events 
he  narrates,  and  the  book  claims  to  be  by  the  disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved.  These  particulars  apply  best  to  the  apostle 
John  and  to  him  alone. 

1  These  verses  are  commonly  held  by  critical  scholars  to  have  been 
added  to  the  Gospel  by  the  elders  of  the  church  over  which  John  was 
pastor,  and  who  provided  the  first  copy  of  his  Gospel  for  transcription. 
See  Abbot,  Authenticity  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  p.  90. 


76  WRITERS   AND   COMPOSITION  OF 

9.  Pauline  Epistles. — In  each  of  the  Thirteen  Epis- 
tles of  Paul,  the  writer  distinctly  avows  himself  to  be  the 
apostle  of  that  name.  If  they  were  not  by  him,  then  they 
are  bold  forgeries.  Who  believes  that  treatises  of  this  kind 
that  were  deliberate  forgeries  would  have  held  or  gained  the 
confidence  of  the  church  universal,  and  during  the  life-time 
of  many  intimate  pupils  of  that  great  apostle  ?  None,  ex- 
cept the  critics  of  the  destructive  school  of  Bauer  and 
of  Renan,  doubt  that  these  epistles  were  all  written  by  Paul. 
Even  they  are  compelled  to  admit  most  of  them  to  be 
genuine.  The  historic  evidence  is  clear  that  they  were  the 
writings  of  Paul. 

10.  The  Hebrews. — The  writer  of  the  book  of  Hebrews  is 
unknown,  or  at  least  undetermined.  The  authorship  was 
an  open  question  as  long  ago  as  the  days  of  Origen.  In 
the  early  eastern  church  the  belief  was  that  Paul  wrote  it, 
or  that  it  was  his  treatise  although  it  might  have  been 
penned  by  Luke  or  Clement.  But  in  the  early  western 
church  the  author  was  believed  to  be  Barnabas  or  some  un- 
known writer.  In  later  times  Luther  advocated  Apollos  as 
the  author,  while  Erasmus  urged  Clement. 

11.  James. — The  Epistle  of  James  could  not  have  been 
written  by  James,  son  of  Zebedee  and  the  brother  of  John, 
for  it  was  written  after  the  persecution,  and  hence  after 
James  was  slain  by  Herod.  The  writer  was  a  James  whose 
pastoral  authority  he  assumed  would  not  be  questioned  by 
the  Jewish  Christians  "  scattered  abroad."  This  fits  well 
with  what  history  tells  us  of  James  the  "  bishop  "  of  Jeru- 
salem. Whether  he  was  identical  with  James  the  son  of 
Alphaeus  (which  is  doubtful)  or  James  the  brother  of  the 
Lord,  or  was  another  James,  cannot  be  discussed  here  for 
want  of  space.     It  must  suffice  to  say  that  it  is  not  incon- 


THE    NEW    TESTAMENT    BOOKS.  77 

sistent  with  the  main  historic  facts  to  regard  James  the 
writer  of  this  Epistle  as  identical  with  the  "bishop"  of 
Jerusalem  and  with  James  the  brother  of  the  Lord. 

12.  Peter. — The  two  Epistles  of  Peter  are  clearly  as- 
cribed to  Simon  Peter,  one  of  the  twelve.  The  first  Epis- 
tle was  universally  accepted  by  the  early  Church  as  the 
work  of  Peter,  which  the  style  and  contents  strongly  con- 
firm. The  author  aims  to  comfort  Christians  who  were 
suffering  for  their  religion.  They  were  the  Christian 
Jews  scattered  through  the  Roman  provinces  of  Asia 
Minor.  The  second  Epistle  claims  to  be  by  Peter  and 
to  be  the  "second  "  which  he  had  written  (2  Pet.  3  :  1). 
It  was  held  among  the  doubtful  books  for  some  time,  but, 
after  a  careful  sifting  of  the  evidences  for  its  Petrine  author- 
ship, it  was  accepted  as  genuine.  The  resemblances  of 
style  between  this  and  the  first  Epistle  are  greater  than  the 
differences,  and  these  differences  spring  chiefly  from  the 
different  purpose  and  persons  for  which  the  two  books  were 
written.  Hope  is  the  keynote  of  the  first,  since  those  ad- 
dressed were  persecuted  for  their  faith.  Knowledge  is  em- 
phasized in  the  second,  since  it  was  written  to  those  ex- 
posed to  false  teaching,  but,  in  fact,  holiness  is  the  theme 
of  both  Epistles. 

13.  John' s  Epistles. — The  First  Epistle  of  John  was 
generally  received  by  the  early  Church  as  written  by  John 
the  beloved  disciple  and  one  of  the  twelve.  In  contents 
and  style  it  agrees  well  with  the  fourth  Gospel.  It  was  in- 
tended to  guard  against  false  teachings  and  to  confirm  the 
faith  of  believers  in  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God.  It  was  first 
written  for  the  church  at  Ephesus  and  for  Christians  in  that 
region.  The  two  smaller  epistles  of  John  were  widely, 
though  not  universally,  received  as  the  letters  of  John  in 


78  WRITERS   AND  COMPOSITION   OF 

the  time  of  Origen,  and,  after  long  testing,  were  finally  re- 
ceived as  genuine.  The  second  is  addressed  to  "  the  elect 
lady  and  her  children,"  which  probably  refers  to  some 
church  in  a  house,  similar  to  that  in  the  house  of  Aquila 
and  Priscilla  (i  Cor.  16  :  19  ;  Rom.  16  :  3,  5).  The  third 
Epistle  of  John  was  written  to  Gaius,  perhaps  one  of  those 
elsewhere  named  (Rom.  16  :  23  ;  1  Cor.  1 :  14;  Acts  19  : 
29 ;  20 :  4).  It  describes  the  state  of  the  Church  near  the 
close  of  the  first  century.  The  date  of  all  John's  epistles 
must  be  placed  late  in  the  first  century,  though  possibly  a 
little  earlier  than  that  of  Revelation. 

14.  Jude. — The  short  Epistle  of  Jude  is  recognized 
by  writers  who  are  silent  respecting  that  of  James.  Pre- 
cisely which  Jude  it  was  who  was  "  the  brother  of  James  " 
depends  upon  which  James  is  intended.  If  Jude  had  been 
an  apostle,  he  would  naturally  have  been  expected  to  write 
as  an  apostle.  That  he  should  designate  himself  as  "the 
brother  of  James  ' '  is  incidental  proof  that  he  was  not  the 
apostle  Jude.  He  cites  some  apocryphal  books,1  but  so  Paul 
also  cites  from  heathen  poets.  His  Epistle  reminds  one  of 
the  second  Epistle  of  Peter.  These  striking  resemblances 
have  not  been  very  satisfactorily  explained.  Formerly  it 
was  suggested  that  the  two  writers  used  a  common  docu- 
ment, but  later  critics  regard  the  likenesses  either  as  mere 
coincidences,  or  that  possibly  the  letter  of  Peter  may  have 
unconsciously  influenced  the  language  and  expression  of 
Jude.  The  letter  was  apparently  written  for  Palestinian 
Jews,  about   67  to  70  a.d. 

15.  The  Book  of  Revelation  is  a  product  of  a  period  of 
trial  and  of  hope.     Clearly  it  is  largely  prophetic,  and  it  is 

1  Book  of  Enoch,  and,  according  to  Origen,  Assumption  of  Moses. 


THE    NEW    TESTAMENT    BOOKS. 


79 


now  generally  conceded  that  it  was  written  by  the  apostle 
John.  The  integrity  and  unity  of  the  book  have  been 
sharply  attacked  by  modern  critics,  but  their  arguments 
have  been  shown  to  be  weak  and  their  view  untenable.  The 
interpretation  of  the  book  is  confessedly  hedged  about  with 
the  most  serious  difficulties.  It  is  the  favorite  field  for  the 
mystic,  the  fanciful  and  the  imaginative  biblical  expositors. 
There  is  little  doubt  that  it  was  first  written  to  warn  Chris- 
tians of  coming  persecutions  and  to  comfort  them  in  their 
terrible  sufferings.  It  points  the  martyrs  to  the  reward  be- 
yond this  life  and  to  the  peace  and  glories  of  the  celestial 
home. 

Table  of  New  Testament  Books. 

By  whom,  to  whom,  when  and  where  written,  and  the  subject  of  each 

book. 

N.  B. — The  dates  are  approximate  only.  The  place  of  writing  is  also  not  certain. 
The  titles  of  the  books  and  the  statement  at  the  end  of  the  Epistles  in  our  English 
versi   n  are  not  by  the  original  writer,  but  were  added  by  some  subsequent  hand. 


Book. 


Writer. 


Where 
Written. 


Matt 

Mark..  . 

Luke 

John  .. 


Date. 


Matthew Judaea 60-64.. 

.Mark J  Rome  (?)..  60-67. 

Luke 


Acts... 
Rom... 

1  Cor.. 

2  Cor.. 
Gal 


John  . 

Luke 
Paul.. 


Eph. 

Phil. 
Col.. 


1  Thess, 


Caesarea  or,  o  e. 

Rome(?)58"65-- 
Ephesus  or!-R  1 
Patmosi9°-981- 

Rome I65,  66  . 

Corinth ....  58 

Ephesua ...  57 

Macedonia,  57 

Ephesus  ...  56,  57 

Rome. 


To  Whom. 


Corinth. 


61-63.. 


Jewish  Chris'ns. 
Roman  Chris'ns. 

Theophilus 

All  Christians .... 

Theophilus 

Roman  Chris'ns. 
Ch.  at  Corinth... 


Topic. 


Ch.  at  Galatia.... 

Ch.  at  Ephesus... 

61-63 Ch.  at  Philippi... 

61-63  ....Ch.  atColosse 

52 'Ch.  at  Thessal'a. 


Jesus  the   Messiah. 

'Jesus    the    Son    of 
Man 

Jesus  the  World's 
Redeemer. 

Jesus  the  Eternal 
Son  of  God. 

Planting  of  Apos- 
tolic Churches. 

Sin  and  Grace. 

Unity  and  Resur- 
rection in  CRrist. 

Christian  Graces. 

Salvation  by  Faith. 

Principles,  Life 
and  Unity  of  the 
Church. 

Personal   Counsels. 

Correcting  False 
Doctrines. 

Holiness  and  Sec 
ond  Coming. 


1  Whether  the  last  chapter  is  an  appendix  or  not,  it  is  quite  clear  that  21  :  24,  25 
was  added,  probably  by  the  Church  at  Ephesus,  before  the  publication  of  the  Gos- 
pel. Thus  it  may  have  been  written  while  John  was  first  at  Ephesus,  but  not  cir- 
culated until  his  exile  in  Patmos. 


80 


WRITERS   AND    COMPOSITION. 


Table  of  New  Testament  Books — Continued. 


Book. 


2  Thcss. 

i  Tim... 
2  Tim... 
Titus.... 

Philem. 

Heb 


James... 

i  Peter. 

2  Peter. 

i  John. 

2  John. 

3  John. 

Jude.... 
Rev 


Writers. 


Paul 

« 

Paul,  Barnabas 
or  Apollos  (?)  * 

James,  brother 
of  the  Lord  (?) 

Simon  Peter 

U  M 

Apostle  John 

<<  <( 

«  «« 

Jude 

Apostle  John 


Whbrb 
Written 


Corinth... 


Macedonia 

57  or  65 J 

64  or  67 1 

Macedonia 

65 

61-63 — 

Italy  (?).... 

63-66,... 

Jerusalem. 

62-63  •••• 

Babylon... 

64 

66(?)  

Ephesus... 
it 

9°^9S 

M 

t« 

Jerusalem. 

65-90 

Date. 


52,53 


Patmos  (?):95-ioo. 


To  Whom. 


Ch.  at  Thessal'a. 
Timothv 

Titus 

Philemon 

Judaean  Chris'ns 


Scattered  Jewish 
Christians. 

To  all  Christians 

Believers 

Elect  Lady 

Gaius 

Jewish  Chris'ns. 
Seven  ch's,  Asia. 


Topic. 


Correcting  Wrong 
Vi  e  ws  of  F  i  r  s  t 
Letter. 

Duties  of  Church 
Officers. 

Triumphant  Faith. 

Special  Rules  for 
the  Pastor. 

Freedom  and  Sla- 
very. 

Christ's  Priesthood 
Superior  to  the 
Mosaic. 

Works,  Faith  and 
Prayer. 

Duties  of  Christians 
to  One  Another. 

A  New  Heaven  and 
Earth. 

Redeeming  Love. 

Obedience  to  Christ. 

Personal  Piety. 

Against  Dangerous 
Doctrines. 

The  Church  in  Con- 
flict and  Glory. 


1  The  date  depends  upon  whether  there  was   a  second  imprisonment  of  Paul  at 
Rome.     If  there  was,  the  latter  date  is  the  correct  one. 

2  Opinions  of  critical  scholars  are    now  divided  between  the  three,  with  the  ten- 
dency not  very  strong  against  the  Pauline  authorship  of  Hebrews, 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  :    HOW   AND   WHEN    ONE   BOOK. 

The  several  books  composing  the  Old  Testament  were 
written  at  different  times,  stretching  over  a  period  of  about 
one  thousand  years.  They  span  the  ten  centuries  from 
Moses  and  the  exodus  to  the  return  from  the  Babylonian 
captivity  and  the  era  of  Ezra  and  Malachi.  Like  the  build- 
ing of  a  vast,  magnificent  palace,  the  production  and  gath- 
ering into  one  book  of  all  these  varied  writings  of  the  law, 
the  prophets  and  the  psalms,  was  a  slow  process. 

i.  Books  in  Sepiuagint  Bible. — In  the  first  centuries  of 
the  Christian  era  the  Septuagint  or  Greek  version  of  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures  was  in  common  use.  Along  with  this 
version  of  the  generally-accepted  books  of  the  Hebrew 
Bible,  certain  other  apocryphal  works  were  placed  for  refer- 
ence, and  thus  came  into  favor  and  were  not  infrequently 
quoted  as  if  those  works  possessed  the  authority  of  the  sa- 
cred books  themselves.  But  the  sharp  controversies  of  the 
Jews  with  their  opponents  caused  them  to  point  out  precisely 
the  real  difference  between  the  Greek  collection  and  their 
Hebrew  Bible,  and  to  define  more  clearly  the  books  which 
were  accepted  as  of  divine  authority — that  is,  the  books 
really  comprised  in  the  Hebrew  Old  Testament. 

2.  Testimony  of  Origen  and  Josephus. — The  early  Chris- 
tians also  saw  the  necessity  of  fixing  upon  a  list  in  accord 
with  the   historic   belief  of  the   Hebrews.     Thus  Origen 

(81) 


82  THE  old  testament: 

(186-254  a.d.)  made  a  list  of  these  Old  Testament  books, 
based  upon  the  historic  views  prevailing  among  the  Jews. 
Josephus  recognized  a  definite  and  distinct  body  of  books  as 
sacred.  The  efforts/ecently  made  to  belittle  the  testimony 
of  Josephus  on  this  point  indicate  greater  ingenuity  than 
candor.  It  is  said  that  he  does  not  furnish  an  "authentic 
list."  But  from  his  definite  statement  it  is  certain  there 
was  a  body  of  sacred  books  well  known  and  generally  ac- 
cepted ;  and  from  other  historic  sources  the  books  in  the 
main  can  be  satisfactorily  determined.  His  words  are 
worth  citing :  "  We  have  not  an  innumerable  multitude  of 
books  among  us,  disagreeing  and  contradicting  one  another 
[as  the  Greeks  have],  but  only  twenty-two  books,  which 
contain  the  records  of  all  the  past  times;  which  are  justly 
believed  to  be  divine."  He  then  describes  them  as  five 
books  of  Moses,  thirteen  written  by  the  prophets,  and  four 
books  of  poems  and  "  precepts  for  the  conduct  of  human 
life."  Contra  Apion,  1:8.  By  a  common  usage  of  the 
Jews,  the  books  were  counted  twenty-two  (but  more  fre- 
quently twenty-four),  to  correspond  with  the  letters  in  the 
Hebrew  alphabet.  As  the  two  books  of  Samuel  were  reck- 
oned one,  and  the  two  of  Kings  one,  and  the  two  of 
Chronicles  one,  and  Lamentations  was  a  part  of  Jeremiah, 
and  the  twelve  minor  prophets  were  counted  one  only,  the 
collection  noted  by  Josephus  is  substantially  that  now  ac- 
cepted. It  is  conceded  by  Eichhorn  and  others  that  Jo- 
sephus quotes  all  the  books  of  the  Talmudic  canon  except 
four ;  but  two  of  these  must  be  counted  in  his  four  books 
of  poetry,  to  wit,  Proverbs  and  Ecclesiastes.  This  leaves 
only  the  Song  of  Solomon  and  possibly  Job  uncertain  in 
his  list. 

3.    The  Triple  Division, — Professor   Strack,  a  foremost 


HOW    AND    WHEN    ONE   BOOK.  83 

Hebraist,  holds  the  statement  of  Josephus  to  be  of  the 
"  strongest  testimony  for  the  canon,  and,  as  is  evident,  ex- 
presses the  national  and  not  his  private  views."  He  further 
urges  that,  in  the  twenty-two  books,  Josephus  counted  Job 
and  the  Song  of  Solomon.  Moreover  Strack  declares  that 
the  triple  division  of  the  books  in  the  Hebrew  Old  Testa- 
ment is  affirmed  in  the  prologue  to  Sirach,  and  in  the  New 
Testament,  Luke  24:  44.1 

4.  What  Philo  and  Talmudists  say. — The  Talmud  ists, 
however,  commonly  reckoned  the  number  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament books  twenty-four.  This  could  easily  be  made  by 
separating  some  of  the  books  counted  as  one  in  the  Jewish 
schools  of  Alexandria.  Philo  quotes  as  of  divine  authority 
thirty  of  the  thirty-nine  books;  so  that,  passing  by  the  dis- 
puted 1  assage  in  his  writings  mentioning  the  books  that 
were  in  the  Old  Testament,  he  quotes  all  the  books  that  we 
would  expect,  from  his  topic  and  style,  that  he  would  cite, 
except  possibly  two  books. 

5.  What  Christ  and  New  Testament  Writers  Say. — To 
this  must  be  added  the  direct  if  not  conclusive  testimony 
of  the  New  Testament.  In  the  apostolic  writings  it  is  clear 
that  groups  of  works,  and  a  body  of  books  regarded  as  a 
unit,  are  repeatedly  alluded  to  as  of  divine  authority. 
What  those  separate  writings  were  may  and  can  be  ascer- 
tained by  evidence  sufficient  to  satisfy  a  candid  and  an  im- 
partial mind.  The  Hebrew  Scriptures  are  frequently  re- 
ferred to,  or  quoted  under  groups  of  books,  as  "  the  law," 
"  the  law  of  Moses,"  or  simply  "Moses,"  "the  prophets," 
and  the  psalms,  or  sometimes  "  the  writings,"  that  is,  "  the 


1  Professor  Briggs  (Biblical  Study,  p.  131)  objects  to  this,  but  his  ob- 
jection is  inconclusive. 


84  THE  old  testament: 

Scriptures  M  in  the  narrow  sense.  They  are  alluded  to  as  a 
unit,  one  divine  record;  "  the  Scriptures"  in  the  broader 
sense.1 

Christ  quoted  the  Jewish  "Scriptures"  as  sacred  books 
of  divine  authority.  By  "Scriptures"  he  did  not  refer 
simply  to  the  K'tubim  or  Hagiographa,  that  is,  the  so- 
called  third  group ;  for  the  passages  thus  cited  were  fre- 
quently from  the  prophets,  which  belonged  to  the  so-called 
second  group.  For  example,  "  not  knowing  the  Script- 
ures," Matt.  22:  29,  31,  evidently  has  reference  to  Ex. 
3:6;  and  "  how  then  shall  the  Scriptures  be  fulfilled ? " 
refers  to  Isa.  53  :  10 ;  and  a  similar  phrase  in  Mark  15  :  28 
is  followed  by  a  citation  from  Isa.  53  :  12. 

6.  Old  Testament  Books  Quoted  in  the  New. — Not 
less  than  thirty  of  the  thirty-nine  Old  Testament  books 
are  quoted  in  the  New  Testament.  Our  Lord  Himself 
quotes  from  twenty  of  them.  There  are  about  280  direct 
quotations  (including  those  in  Revelation)  of  passages  and 
clauses,  and  about  220  references  to  incidents  and  indirect 
quotations  in  the  New  Testament  (exclusive  of  Revela- 
tion)2 from  the  Old  Testament.     The  book  of  Revelation 


1  For  notice  of  the  Old  Testament  books  in  the  commonly-accepted 
groups,  see  Matt.  5:17;  7:12;  12:5;  22: 40;  Mark  1:2;  John 
1:45;  7:I95  8:5;  15:25;  Luke  10:26;  24:44.  For  reference 
to  them  as  one  work,  see  Matt.  21 :  42 ;  22  :  29 ;  26  :  54 ;  Mark  12 :  24 ; 
14 :  49  ;  Luke  24:  27,  32,  45  ;  John  5  :  39 ;  Acts  17 ;  2,  II ;  18 :  24 ; 
Rom.  1:2;  15:4;  16:26;  1  Cor.  15:3;  2  Tim.  3:15;  2  Pet. 
3:16.  Those  who  assert  that  when  Jesus  referred  to  the  group  called 
the  Psalms,  which  included  all  the  books  not  in  the  groups  of  the  law 
and  of  the  prophets,  he  referred  only  to  the  single  book  of  Psalms 
and  not  to  the  group  so  called,  are  simply  "  begging  the  whole  ques- 
tion "  at  issue. 

2  Some  older  writers  roughly  counted  265  direct  quotations  and  350 
allusions  in  the  New  Testament  from  the  Old.  The  latest  tables  in 
Bagster's  new  "  Helps  to  Bible  §tudy  "  note  about  850  such  direct 


HOW   AND  WHEN   ONE   BOOK.  86 

is  almost  a  mosaic  of  thoughts,  figures  and  expressions, 
from  the  prophetic  books  of  the  Old  Testament.1 

Again,  the  numerous  citations  in  the  Gospels  and  Epistles 
clearly  indicate  that  some  divisions  in  the  Hebrew  Script- 
ures were  recognized  and  well  known  in  that  era,  while 
at  the  same  time  all  these  groups  were  known  as  one  work, 
called,  by  way  of  eminence,  "the  Scriptures." 

7.  The  Synod  of  J^amnia. — It  is  generally  agreed  that 
the  books  rightfully  having  a  place  in  the  Jewish  Script- 
ures were  definitely  fixed  by  the  assembly  or  council  at 
Jamnia,  in  the  time  of  the  Jewish  war  with  Titus  about 
a.d.  70.  There  was  a  dissenting  minority  among  the  Es- 
senes  and  Zealots,  who  would  include  apocryphal  books, 
and  doubtless  some  among  Sadducees  and  Samaritans,  all 
of  whom  held  views  of  doctrines  more  or  less  heretical. 
But  the  majority  of  the  assembly  agreed  upon  the  gener- 
ally accepted  books  held  to  be  of  divine  authority. 

Some  of  the  Grecian  Jews  of  Alexandria  were  broad  in 
their  views,  favoring  the  apocryphal  books,  and  had  placed 
them  in  their  Greek  version  of  the  Old  Testament ;  but 
there  was  no  Alexandrian  canon.8  The  Sadducees  would 
naturally  reject  any  book  that  favored  future  life  and  a 
resurrection,  doctrines  which  they  denied ;  while  the  Sa- 

and  indirect  quotations  and  allusions.  The  tables  in  Oxford  "  Helps 
to  the  Study  of  the  Bible  "  give  a  good  list  of  exact  quotations  and  a 
somewhat  less  complete  list  of  indirect  quotations  and  allusions. 

1  From  a  careful  examination  of  the  book  of  Revelation,  it  appears 
that  in  fifteen  passages  the  book  of  Revelation  uses  the  exact  language 
and  expressions  of  some  Old  Testament  book,  besides  129  distinct 
allusions  to  the  Old  Testament,  and  upwards  of  100  less  distinct  refer- 
ences. Bagster's  "Helps"  note  only  six  citations,  aside  from  "allu- 
sions" in  Revelation  to  the  Old  Testament. 

1  The  old  Syrian  Church  did  not  accept  the  Old  Testament  Apoc- 
rypha. The  books  are  not  in  the  Peshito  version,  though  found  in 
later  Syrian  versions. 


86  THE  OLD  testament: 

maritan  party  was  loth  to  accept  any  except  the  five  books 
of  Moses  as  of  divine  authority.  Yet  the  ablest  Biblical 
scholars  maintain  that  the  Jews  of  Egypt  held  that  the 
same  books  belonged  to  the  Old  Testament,  as  did  the 
Jews  of  Palestine.1 

8.  How  Formed. — It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  special 
veneration  of  sacred  books  written  by  authors  of  promi- 
nence would  first  appear,  and  that  too  when  the  power  of 
the  revealing  spirit  had  been  exceptionally  clear  and  strong. 
This  would  begin  with  the  books  of  Moses  and  those  asso- 
ciated with  them,  and  then  extend  to  the  more  earnest  and 
spiritual  of  the  prophets.2  How  much  earlier  than  the 
Council  of  Jamnia  the  entire  collection  of  Old  Testament 
books  was  completed  and  fixed  it  is  not  possible  definitely 
to  state.  The  statement  of  Josephus  implies  a  date  some 
centuries  before  the  Christian  era.  He  says,  after  the  pas- 
sage -quoted  above,  "  How  firmly  we  have  given  credit  to 
these  books  of  our  own  nation  is  evident  by  what  we  do ; 
for  during  so  many  ages  as  have  already  passed,  no  one  has 
been  so  bold  as  either  to  add  anything  to  them,  to  take 
anything  from  them,  or  to  make  any  change  in  them ;  but 
it  is  become  natural  to  all  Jews.  ...  to  esteem  these  books 
to  contain  divine  doctrines,  to  persist  in  them,  and  if  oc- 
casion be,  willingly  to  die  for  them."    Contra  Apion,  i :  8. 

Josephus  here  advocates  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  as 
against  Greeks,  and  appears  to  point  to  the  persecution 
against  the  sacred  books  of  the  Jews  which  followed  the 
Maccabsean  wars  about  160  b.  c.  It  seems  fair  to  infer, 
therefore,  that  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  accepted  in  Jose- 


1  So  Eichhorn,  De  Wette,  Keil  and  Havernick.     Bleek  and  some 
others  dissent. 
*  So  Dr.  Dillmann  argues. 


HOW    AND   WHEN    ONE    BOOK.  87 

phus'  day  were  completed  and  accepted  at  the  period  of 
this  persecution.  The  Son  of  Sirach,  in  a  prologue  to 
Ecclesiasticus,  strengthens  this  view  by  his  testimony. 

9.  Ezra  and  the  Great  Synagogue. — There  is,  indeed,  an 
oral  tradition,  reduced  to  writing  at  a  later  period,  that  the 
collection  of  Old  Testament  books  was  made  under  divine 
appointment  by  Ezra,  or  by  the  hundred  and  twenty  men 
of  the  Great  Synagogue ;  but  this  tradition,  though  widely 
prevalent  among  the  Jews  for  centuries,  has  not  been  traced 
to  any  satisfactory  historical  sources,  and  is  stoutly  dis- 
puted by  modern  critical  scholars.  Whether  the  collection 
of  Old  Testament  books  was  or  was  not  made  by  the  Great 
Synagogue,  or  by  Ezra,  Nehemiah  or  Malachi,  or  some  of 
the  last  of  the  prophets,  it  is  certain  that  there  was  such  a 
complete  collection  for  two  or  three  centuries,  at  least,  be- 
fore the  Christian  era,  and  that  there  was  a  book  of  the 
law,  the  germ  of  the  collection  of  divine  authority,  known 
eight  or  ten  centuries  earlier.  See  2  Chron.  34:  15  ;  Josh. 
1:8;  8  :  34  ;   Deut.  30  :  10  ;  31  :  26. 

10.  Slow  Growth. — The  New  Testament  was  the  product 
and  result  of  a  single  century ;  the  Old  Testament  the 
growth  of  ten  centuries,  and  of  great  eras  in  the  Hebrew 
national  life.  It  was  certainly  complete  and  well  defined  in 
the  period  of  persecution  of  Antiochus  (168  b.  c.)  In 
that  period  the  sacred  books  were  sought  out  and  burnt,  and 
possession  of  a  "  book  of  the  covenant "  was  punished  by 
death. 

11.  Objections  Answered. — The  dissent  from  the  strict 
Jewish  list  of  Old  Testament  books  is  only  partial  and  ap- 
parent, not  real  or  partaking  of  any  national  character. 
The  unsettled  state  of  the  Hebrew  people  after  the  exile, 
their  persecutions  and   distracting  wars,  and  the  various 


88  THE  OLD  testament: 

heresies  that  sprang  from  interchanging  with  Gentile  peo- 
ples, account  for  the  "  controversies "  respecting  their 
religion  and  sacred  books.  There  was  no  serious  question- 
ing of  the  divine  authority  of  the  books ;  nor  are  the  few 
references  to  the  apocryphal  books  any  conclusive  proof 
that  they  were  regarded  as  Scriptures.  Philo  never  uses 
the  apocryphal  in  the  same  way  that  he  does  the  canonical 
books.  Josephus  expressly  disclaims  divine  authority  for 
the  apocryphal  writings.1 

It  is  safe,  therefore,  to  conclude,  from  historical  and 
other  evidence,  that  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  were 
gathered  into  one  and  accepted  as  of  divine  authority  by 
the  general  consensus  of  godly  Jewish  people,  and  that  the 
collection  was  completed  from  two  to  three  centuries  be- 
fore the  Christian  era.  This  collection  has  been  generally 
accepted  as  the  entire  books  belonging  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment by  the  early  Syrian  Church  and  by  all  bodies  of 
modern  evangelical  and  Protestant  churches.  The  Latin 
Church  accepted  the  same  also,  with  the  addition  of  some 
apocryphal  books. 

12.  Order  of  the  Books. — The  order  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment books  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  is  not  the  same  as  in  our 
common  English  Bibles.  In  the  face  of  the  rigid  rules 
for  making  copies  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  the  variations 
found  in  Hebrew  manuscripts  and  in  Hebrew  printed 
Bibles  number  about  thirty  thousand  (some  estimate  two 
hundred  thousand),  but  they  are  mostly  quite  unimportant. 
The  Old  Testament  we  have  now  is  substantially  that  of 


1  "  It  is  true,  our  history  hath  been  written  since  Artaxerxes  very 
particularly,  but  it  hath  not  been  esteemed  of  the  like  authority  with 
the  former  by  our  forefathers,  because  there  hath  not  been  an  exact 
succession  of  prophets  since  that  time." — Contra  Apion,  I  ;8. 


noW   AND  WHEN   ONE   BOOK.  89 

Ezra  and  Nehemiah  and  the  "  received  text  "  of  our  Lord's 
day,  except  as  to  the  order  of  arranging  the  books. 

13.  The  Hebrew  order  varied,  but  the  following  is  a 
common  one : 

I.  Pentateuch. — Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers, 
Deuteronomy. 

II.  Earlier  Prophets. — Joshua,  Judges,  1  and  2  Samuel, 

1  and  2  Kings. 

III.  Later  Prophets. — (a)  Greater:  Isaiah,  Jeremiah, 
Ezekiel.  (b)  Lesser :  Hosea,  Joel,  Amos,  Obadiah,  Jonah, 
Micah,  Nahum,  Habakkuk,  Zephaniah,  Haggai,  Zechariah, 
Malachi. 

IV.  K'tubim  or  Hagiographa. — (a)  Psalms,  Proverbs, 
Job.  {b)  Five  Rolls,  Song  of  Songs,  Ruth,  Lamentations, 
Ecclesiastes,  Esther.     (V)  Daniel,  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  1  and 

2  Chronicles. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  Hebrew  Old  Testament 
closes  with  the  Chronicles  regarded  as  one  book.  This 
will  throw  light  on  the  reference  to  "  Abel  and  Zachariah  " 
as  the  first  and  last-mentioned  martyr  (Matt.  23  :  35).  An 
earlier  Hebrew  arrangement,  it  is  held,  existed,  by  which 
Ruth  was  a  part  of  or  appendix  to  Judges,  and  Lamentations 
to  Jeremiah.  The  books  of  Samuel  were  one,  as  also  the 
two  books  of  Kings,  and  the  twelve  minor  prophets  one, 
thus  making  twenty-four  books  in  the  Hebrew  Bible. 

14.  Supposed  Variations  in  the  Lists  of  Books. — The  his- 
torical facts  in  favor  of  the  authority  of  the  Old  Testament 
books  now  received  by  evangelical  Christians,  have  not 
really  been  weakened  by  exaggerating  the  variations  from 
that  list.  For  example,  it  is  asserted  that  there  was  (1)  a 
Saddueean,  (2)  a  Samaritan,  and  (3)  an  Alexandrian  canon 
of  the  Old  Testament.     There  is  no  historical  proof  that 

6 


90  THE  old  testament: 

the  Sadducees  received  the  books  of  Moses  only,  and 
did  not  receive  the  other  Old  Testament  books.  The 
Samaritan  mixed  population,  which  broke  away  from  the 
Jews  and  set  up  a  worship  and  temple  on  Mt.  Gerizim,  did 
restrict  their  Old  Testament  canon  to  the  five  books  of 
Moses.  The  Alexandrian  Jews,  on  the  other  hand,  did  put 
other  books  with  the  books  of  the  ordinary  Hebrew  Old 
Testament,  without  distinctly  marking  the  difference ;  but 
it  is  not  proven  that  the  mass  of  even  those  Jews  accepted 
them  all  as  of  divine  authority.  Added  to  these  three,  are 
others  more  recent  as: (4)  the  Patristic  list,  that  grew  out 
of  the  Alexandrian  or  Septuagint  version,  which  failed  to 
draw  a  sharp  line  between  the  canonical  and  apocryphal 
books.  From  this,  again,  came  (5)  the  Roman  Catholic 
canon.  By  the  Council  of  Trent,  1546,  it  was  declared 
that  the  larger  canon  including  the  Apocrypha  was  deserv- 
ing of  "  equal  veneration  "  with  the  other  books ;  but  later 
Romanists  of  intelligence  have  sought  by  various  devices 
to  escape  from  this  decisive  decree.  On  the  same  side 
some  count  (6)  the  Greek  Church.  But  that  church  is  di- 
vided on  the  question,  or  at  least  is  not  consistent  in  its 
edicts.  The  Synods  of  Constantinople,  1638,  Jassy,  1642, 
Jerusalem,  1672,  refused  to  distinguish  the  canonical  from 
the  apocryphal  Old  Testament  books,  although  Cyril  of 
Constantinople  did  so  mark  them.  The  Larger  Catechism 
of  that  church,  Moscow  1839,  an  authoritative  doctrinal 
standard  of  the  church  in  Russia,  excludes  the  apocryphal 
Old  Testament  books  on  the  ground  that  "  they  do  not  ex- 
ist in  Hebrew."  The  Old  Catholic  Union,  1874,  declares 
"that  the  apocryphal  or  deutero-canonical  books  of  the 
Old  Testariient  are  not  of  the  same  canonicity  as  the  books 
contained  in  the  Hebrew  canon."     They  also  say  that  no 


HOW   AND   WHEN   ONE   BOOK.  91 

translation  can  have  superior  authority  to  the  original  text. 
(7)  The  Protestant  canon  conforms  to  the  traditional  He- 
brew list,  and  is  based  on  the  most  ancient  and  the  highest 
authority.  Luther  translated  the  Old  Testament  apocry- 
phal books  and  commended  them  for  private  reading,  but 
did  not  count  them  of  like  divine  authority  with  the  books 
in  the  ancient  Hebrew  canon.  The  church  of  England  al- 
lows the  use  of  the  apocryphal  books  "for  example  of  life 
in  instruction  of  manners :  but  yet  doth  it  not  apply  to 
them  to  establish  any  doctrine."  The  Belgic  Confession 
holds  a  similar  position.  The  Westminster  Confession  ex- 
pressly declares  them  to  be  of  no  more  value  than  other 
human  writings;  "  The  books  commonly  called  Apocrypha, 
not  being  of  divine  inspiration,  are  no  part  of  the  canon 
of  Scripture ;  and  therefore  are  of  no  authority  in  the 
Church  of  God,  nor  to  be  otherwise  approved  or  made 
use  of  than  other  human  writings."  Chap.  I.  §3.  The 
various  evangelical  bodies  of  Christians  clearly  agree  in 
uniformly  omitting  the  Apocrypha  from  the  list  of  sacred 
books. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE    BOOKS  OF  THE    LAW:      THEIR  AUTHORSHIP  AND    COM- 
POSITION. 

That  part  of  the  Bible  which  begins  with  the  creation 
and  ends  with  the  death  of  Moses,  in  early  times  was  writ- 
ten in  one  Hebrew  roll,  or  book.  In  the  Greek  translation 
it  was  arranged  in  five  books,  as  now  in  our  English  Bibles. 

i.  Name. — These  five  books  are  often  called  "  The  Pen- 
tateuch," from  the  Greek  6  nevTarevxoc  (ho  pentateuchos), 
meaning  "  the  five-volumed  "  book.  The  Hebrews  call  it 
Torah,  "Law,"  and,  more  fully,  "The  Law  of  Moses." 
The  unity  of  this  entire  portion  of  the  Scriptures  is 
founded  upon  history  and  the  close  continuity  of  the  con- 
tents of  the  books.  For  example,  in  Hebrew  manuscripts, 
Genesis  is  reckoned  not  as  one  of  five  books,  but  as  one  part 
of  one  book.  A  Hebrew  conjunctive  word  connects  Exo- 
dus with  Genesis,  as  it  does  each  of  the  five  books  except 
Deuteronomy. 

2.  Division. — The  division  into  five  books  is  ascribed 
by  some  to  the  Alexandrian  translators  (285  B.C.),  and  by 
others  to  the  Maccabsean  period,  or  possibly  to  the  era  of 
Ezra.  The  one  roll,  however,  continued  to  be  referred  to 
as  "  The  Law  "  even  to  the  time  of  Christ ;  for  under  this 
title  he  quoted  several  of  the  first  five  books.1  The  title  of 

1  Matt.  12  :  5,  *\  g.,  refers  to  Numbers ;  Luke  10 :  26,  27  to  Deuter- 
onomy and  Leviticus ;  Luke  2 :  22,  23  to  Exodus  and  Leviticus,  etc.,  but 
under  the  one  designation,  The  Law. 

(92) 


THE    BOOKS   OF    Till;    LAW.  93 

each  of  the  five  separate  books  in  our  English  version  is 
derived  through  the  Latin  from  the  Alexandrian  Greek 
version.  These  titles  indicate  the  topic  or  contents  of  the 
respective  books.  Genesis  tells  of  the  birth  or  creation  of 
the  world ;  Exodus,  of  the  exodus  or  departure  of  the  He- 
brews from  Egypt ;  Leviticus,  of  the  law  or  rules  of  worship; 
Numbers,  of  the  census  of  the  people  in  the  wilderness; 
and  Deuteronomy — meaning. "  the  second  law  " — is  a  sum- 
mary or  re-statement  of  the  law.  The  Hebrew  title  for 
each  of  these  books  (when  they  note  any  division)  was  the 
first  words  with  which  each  book  began.  The  writers  often 
referred  to  the  roll  as  "  Moses  "  or  "The  Law,"  and 
pointed  out  the  place  by  the  first  word  or  words  of  the 
section,  as  "  the  bush,"  Luke  20:  37,  which  is  the  phrase 
there  used  to  refer  to  the  section  in  Ex.  3  :  6.  This  ap- 
pears clearly  in  the  Revised  Version. 

The  Talmud  and  Ancient  Jewish  Bibles  divided  "  The 
Law  "  into  fifty-four  sections  called  Perashioth  ;  and  these 
were  again  subdivided  into  smaller  sections  and  classed 
under  two  heads,  "Open  "  sections,  and  "  Shut."  These 
were  marked  by  P  or  S  to  catch  the  reader's  eye.  Possibly 
this  is  the  origin  of  the  "  ^f  "  in  modern  Bibles.  One  of 
these  longer  sections  was  to  be  read  each  Sabbath  of  the  year. 
Broadly,  then,  Genesis  may  be  called  the  book  of  beginnings; 
Exodus,  the  book  of  deliverance ;  Leviticus,  the  priestly 
book ;  Numbers,  the  book  of  marches  and  of  wars ;  Deuter- 
onomy, the  statute  or  code  book  of  the  Hebrew  people. 

3.  Authorship. — The  uniform  historic  testimony  of  early 
Christian,  of  Hebrew  and  of  heathen  writers  is  that  Moses 
was  believed  to  be  the  writer  of  the  Pentateuch  or  first 
five  books  of  the  Bible.  This  view  has  been  held,  practi- 
cally without  question,  until  comparatively  recent  times. 


94  THE   BOOKS   OF   THE   LAW  I 

The  Talmud  says,  "  Moses  wrote  his  book,  the  Pentateuch, 
with  the  exception  of  eight  verses,  the  last  eight  verses, 
which  were  written  by  Joshua."  Philo  and  Josephus  held 
that  these  books  were  written  by  Moses.  "Newer  crit- 
icism" has  reopened  the  question.  It  concedes  that  He- 
brew testimony  and  tradition  say  Moses  was  the  author ; 
but  is  tradition  right?  or  was  the  "Law"  compiled  by 
Samuel,  Solomon,  Josiah,  Ezra,  or  by  some  unknown  "  re- 
dactor "  of  a  later  period?1  These  theories  have  been 
varied,  progressing  from  one'hypothesis  to  another,  or  dis- 
agreeing among  themselves  as  to  the  authorship  and  com- 
position of  the  books. 

Astruc  (1760)  held  that  Genesis  was  composed  of  two 
different  documents  by  two  writers.  Then  this  "docu- 
mentary" character  was  declared  to  run  through  the  three 
books  following  Genesis ;  the  documents  being  loosely  put 
together.  Then  came  a  "fragmentary"  theory,  which 
pushed  aside  the  documentary  one.  It  was  claimed  thai 
the  "  Elohistic  "  portion  was  the  possible  basis,  but  that 
there  was  a  multitude  of  other  fragments.  This  was  again 
changed  to  the  view  that  the  three  or  more  so-called  orig- 
inal "documents"  were  themselves  composite  works,  and 
were  wrought  into  one  composite  work  by  some  unknown 
"redactor,"  and  probably  two  or  three  successive  "  redac- 
tors." No  sooner  are  the  difficulties  of  the  position  on 
one  theory  shown  than  objectors  shift  to  another  theory.2 


1  Ben  Ezra,  of  the  twefth  century,  feebly  raised  this  inquiry.  It  was 
revived  by  Carlstadt,  Spinoza,  Astruc,  Eichhorn  and  Hupfeld.  These 
have  been  followed  by  Bleek,  Graf,  Wellhausen,  Robertson  Smith  and 
others  of  the  more  or  less  destructive  and  radical  schools  of  critics. 
It  is  not  unfair  to  charge  that  the  tendency  of  this  criticism  is  to  deny 
or  minify  the  divine  element,  the  supernatural,  in  the  Scriptures. 

2  In  general  it  may  be  stated  that  according  to  this  "  newer  criti- 


THEIR    AUTHORSHIP    AND   COMPOSITION.  95 

Closely  related  to  the  author  and  mode  of  composition 
of  the  five  books  is  the  date  of  these  several  portions. 
Some  have  urged  that  the  "priestly  code"  (Elohistic)  was 
the  oldest;  others  have  as  stoutly  maintained  that  it  was 
the  newest  and  surely  belonged  to  the  post-exilic  era. 

4.  Composition. —  This  uncertain  sea  of  speculation  may 
be  left  to  its  own  tossings.  Aside  from  inferences,  what 
do  the  books  definitely  say  respecting  their  authorship  and 
composition  ? 

(1)  There  is  no  definite  avowal  of  authorship  that  can 
surely  apply  to  the  entire  Pentateuch ;  but  it  must  apply 
to  a  very  large  portion,  especially  of  the  code.  For  ex- 
ample, God  commanded  Moses  to  write  the  words  of  the 
covenant  (Ex.  34:  27);  Moses  declared  these  words  to 
Israel  (Ex.  35  :  1).  Again,  it  is  declared  in  Deut.  31  :  24, 
26,  that  "when  Moses  had  made  an  end  of  writing  the 
words  of  this  law  in  a  book,  until  they  were  finished,  that 
Moses  commanded  the  Levites,  .  .  .  Take  this  book  of  the 
law,  and  put  it  in  the  side  of  the  ark  of  the  covenant  of 
the  Lord  your  God."  This  is  a  distinct  assertion  that 
Moses  was  the  writer  of  some  Hebrew  code  of  laws. 

(2)  The  whole  history  is  chiefly  given  in  the  third 
person.  "  The  Lord  spake  unto  Moses  "  frequently  occurs. 
"And  Moses  commanded,"  "Moses  said,"  or  "the  words 
of  Moses,"  are  other  expressions  frequently  found  in  the 
Pentateuch. 

(3)  Deut.  34  records  the  death  of  Moses.  This  was 
added  by  a  later  hand  (see  "unto  this  day"  of  v.  6), 
probably  during  the  period  of  the  judges. 


cism  "  the  Pentateuch  was  composed  in  three  or  more  portions,  called 
the  Elohistic,  Jehovistic  and  Deuteronomic. 


96  THE    BOOKS   OF   THE   LAW  : 

(4)  The  five  books  contain  several  remarkably  graphic 
and  interesting  biographies.  Yet  obviously  the  main  pur- 
pose of  these  books  is  not  biography,  nor  personal  or 
local  history.  The  object  is  clearly  to  record  the  origin 
of  the  Hebrew  people  and  to  chronicle  their  early  national 
annals. 

(5)  Is  this  form  not  the  one  most  suitable  for  national 
annals  ?  Indeed,  if  these  books  were  intended  as  authentic 
theocratic  records  of  the  origin  of  the  race,  and  of  the 
Hebrew  nation  in  particular,  would  not  the  impersonal 
form  be  the  most  natural  one  ?  In  official  annals  of  gov- 
ernment, the  identity  of  the  writer  is  of  smaller  importance 
than  the  authenticity  of  the  record.  Moses,  as  the  great 
lawgiver  of  Israel,  would  be  expected  to  leave  some  au- 
thorized copy  of  the  laws  received  for  the  people.  Hebrew 
writers  say  he  did  leave  such  a  record  in  the  Pentateuch. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  books  themselves  against  their 
general  Mosaic  authorship.  There  are  many  incidental 
evidences  in  favor  of  it, — particularly  that  they  were 
written  as  national  annals  by  direction  and  authority  of 
Moses ;  the  death  of  Moses  being  added  by  an  authorized 
successor.  Since,  however,  the  discussions  respecting  the 
composition  and  date  of  the  Pentateuch  are  pressing  upon 
popular  attention,  a  few  leading  points  may  be  helpful  in 
showing  the  character  of  the  conflict. 

5.  Against  the  traditional  view,  beside  the  literary  and 
linguistic  argument,  the  newer  criticism  urges — (1)  That 
the  Pentateuch  sanctions  one  central  place  of  worship. 
But  it  is  said  that  several  places  were  allowed  up  to  the  time 
of  Josiah.  To  this  it  may  be  said,  one,  the  tent,  prevailed 
in  the  wilderness.  (2)  Leviticus  requires  priests  to  be  of 
the  family  of  Aaron,  while  Deuteronomy  and  Judges  ap- 


THEIR   AUTHORSHIP    AND    COMPOSITION.  97 

pear  to  treat  Levites  as  priests.  (3)  The  Levitical  cities 
named  in  the  Pentateuch,  it  is  asserted,  are  not  to  be  found 
as  such  in  history.  (4)  The  feasts  were  not  observed  as 
the  Pentateuch  required.  (5)  The  details  of  the  narrative 
and  history  of  the  Hebrew  worship  are  said  to  be  against 
the  early  Mosaic  date. 

6.  ///  favor  of  the  antiquity  and  Mosaic  authority  of  the 
Pentateuch  is  urged — (1)  The  uniform  testimony  of  past 
ages,  as  already  noted.  It  is  remarkable  that  a  non-Mosaic 
origin  and  a  late  date  for  the  Pentateuch  should  be  left  for 
a  few  recent  critics  to  discover,  and  throws  suspicion  upon 
the  theory. 

(2)  The  use  of  any  existent  documents  that  were  acces- 
sible in  composing  the  theocratic  history  in  the  Pentateuch 
does  not  impair  the  divine  authority,  or  Mosaic  authorship, 
of  the  books.  But  the  critics  cannot  agree  upon  criteria 
that  will  enable  us  to  determine  definitely  any  of  these 
fragments ;  hence  they  cannot  demonstrate  that  any  were 
incorporated,  though  they  may  have  been  used  in  com- 
posing the  Mosaic  books. 

(3)  If  the  books  were  written  as  the  destructive  critics 
claim,  it  is  difficult  to  clear  the  authors  of  literary  fraud. 
It  is  well-nigh  inconceivable  that  writings  cast  in  such  a 
high  moral,  solemn  and  spiritual  tone  could  be  written  by 
those  who  would  deliberately  deceive  readers. 

(4)  There  is  no  historic  evidence  of  the  existence  of 
separate  documents.  The  opposers  to  the  Mosaic  origin 
of  the  books  have  had  no  agreement  among  themselves 
about  them.  They  do  not  agree  upon  the  number  or  limit 
of  the  original  "fragments,"  nor  upon  their  age.  Those 
that  are  claimed  as  latest  by  some  are  also  asserted  to  con- 
tain some  earliest  records  by  others. 


98  THE   BOOKS   OF   THE   LAW: 

(5)  The  Hebrew  people  must  have  had  laws  and  a  his- 
tory for  ages  previous  to  the  exilic  period.  The  new  theory 
of  the  Pentateuch  leaves  them  practically  without  either. 
The  records  of  the  five  books  of  Moses,  however,  fit  well 
with  what  we  know  of  Egypt  and  other  nations  in  the  Mo- 
saic era.  Grant  for  a  moment  that  this  is  not  history  : 
here  stands  Moses,  the  greatest  name  in  ancient  records  as 
lawgiver,  reformer  and  general,  to  be  accounted  for.  How 
did  he  get  into  history? 

(6)  Early  Hebrews,  though  enslaved  in  Egypt,  were  not 
a  savage  horde.  The  monumental  records  of  the  Mosaic 
age  constantly  coming  to  light  are  confirming  the  civiliza- 
tion existing  in  the  land  where  they  dwelt  and  the  accuracy 
of  the"  Mosaic  records. 

(7)  The  weight  of  literary  and  linguistic  facts,  in  truth, 
tells  strongly  for  the  Mosaic  composition  and  antiquity  of 
the  Pentateuch.  The  language  has  an  infusion  of  Egyptian 
words ;  yet  the  system  of  religious  worship  is  in  sharp 
contrast  with  Egyptian  sacrifices  and  worship.  The  place 
of  worship  is  the  tent  (tabernacle) ;  excommunication  is  to 
be  "  cast  out  of  the  camp;  "  the  scapegoat  goes  into  the 
wilderness;  all  the  ritual  speaks  of  the  wandering  life, 
consistent  with  the  belief  that  the  main  portion  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch was  written  at  the  period  and  in  the  region  where 
it  professes  to  have  been  written.  The  ark  had  the  law ; 
and  the  ark  certainly  dates  to  the  wilderness  life. 

(8)  Finally,  the  archaic  quality  in  the  language  of  the 
Pentateuch  is  marked;  the  apparent  tinges  of  a  later  speech 
are  too  few  to  weigh  against  the  weightier  evidence  for  the 
antiquity  of  the  writing.  Recent  discoveries  are  increasing 
the  proofs  for  the  Mosaic  age  and  composition  ;  while  all 
the   material   objections  of  modern  criticism  can  be  ex- 


THEIR    AUTHORSHIP    AM)    COMPOSITION.  99 

plained  upon  the  Mosaic  theory.  The  objectors  are  beset 
with  more  numerous  and  far  greater  difficulties.  They 
must  reconstruct  Hebrew  history,  account  for  the  long- 
existing  belief  in  regard  to  that  history  as  popularly  ac- 
cepted, and  explain  the  monumental  and  other  records 
which  fit  well  into  Hebrew  history  as  hitherto  understood, 
and  which  imply  the  early  existence  of  the  Hebrew  people 
in  conditions  similar  to  those  described  in  the  Mosaic 
books. 

(9)  The  change  in  the  style  and  character  of  the  latter 
portion  of  the  Pentateuch,  in  comparison  with  the  first,  is 
readily  accounted  for  by  the  supposition  that  forty  years 
intervened  between  the  composition  of  the  first  portion, 
up  to  the  report  of  the  spies  and  the  consequent  judgment, 
and  the  latter,  including  the  Deuteronomic  portion.  The 
writer,  after  forty  years  of  added  experience,  would  natu- 
rally take  on  new  forms  and  expressions  in  his  compo- 
sition. 

(10)  The  annals  bear  marks  of  being  composed  at  or  near 
the  period  of  their  occurrence.  A  writer  making  such  a 
record  centuries  later  would  almost  surely  fall  into  errors 
and  anachronisms  which  the  earlier  monumental  records 
would  expose.  Such  a  composition  without  errors  would 
itself  be  a  greater  miracle  than  the  gift  of  supernatural 
guidance  by  divine  inspiration. 

(11)  The  New  Testament  evidence  cannot  be  blown 
aside  by  a  breath.  Jesus  says  of  Moses,  "He  wrote  of 
me"  (John  5:  46,  47).  So  also,  "beginning  at  Moses, 
.  .  .  he,"  etc.  (Luke  24:  27).  The  conclusion  then  is 
that  the  historic  evidence  respecting  the  Mosaic  authorship 
and  antiquity  of  the  first  five  books  of  the  Bible  is  entirely 
trustworthy,  and   modern   research   and   adverse  criticism 


100  THE  BOOKS  OF  THE  LAW. 

have  caused  new  and  yet  stronger  evidence  to  be  brought 
to  light  in  support  of  that  view.1 

1  The  literature  on  this  subject  is  abundant.  Those  who  desire  a 
brief  statement  of  the  Wellhausen  theory,  which  just  now  is  prominent 
in  the  disintegrating  schools  of  criticism,  may  refer  to  the  article 
"  Pentateuch"  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  9th  ed.  For  the  evan- 
gelical view,  see  Bissell's  Pentateuch  :  its  Origin  and  Structure,  1885; 
also  Pentateuchal  discussions,  Profs.  Harper,  Green  and  others,  in  He- 
braic a,  vols.  v.  and  vi.,  1889-90. 


CHAPTER  X. 

HISTORICAL   (O.  T.)    BOOKS:    AUTHORSHIP  AND  COMPOSITION. 

Grouping  the  Old  Testament  books  according  to  their 
contents,  there  are  twelve  almost  wholly  historical.  In  the 
order  of  the  books  found  in  English  Bibles  these  twelve 
historical  books  follow  the  five  books  of  the  law.  They 
begin  with  Joshua  and  end  with  Esther. 

i.  Hebrew  Order. — In  the  Hebrew  Bible  six  of  these 
books,  from  Joshua  to  2  Kings  inclusive  (not  counting 
Ruth),  are  in  a  separate  division  called  "  Earlier  Prophets." 
They  were  so  named  by  the  Massorites,  because  these 
books  recount  the  deeds  of  prophets,  and  Jewish  tradition 
declared  that  they  were  written  by  prophets.  The  other 
six  historical  books  are  placed  in  the  last  division,  the 
Hagiographa  of  the  Hebrew  Bible,  following  the  Psalms, 
Ruth  having  the  5th  place  in  that  division,  Esther  the  8th, 
Ezra  the  10th,  Nehemiah  the  nth  and  the  Chronicles  the 
last  and  closing  one  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures. 

2.  Period  Covered. — These  twelve  historical  books  cover 
about  1000  years  of  Hebrew  history  from  the  death  of 
Moses  to  the  restoration  and  rebuilding  of  the  temple  after 
the  great  exile.  This  history  of  ten  centuries  may  be  di- 
vided into  three  unequal  periods  :  from  the  death  of  Moses 
to  Saul,  about  350  years;  from  Saul's  accession  to  the  fall 
of  Samaria,  about  375  years;  from  the  fall  of  Samaria  to 
the  restoration  of  the  temple  and  Jerusalem  after  Nehemiah, 

(101) 


102  HISTORICAL   (O.   T.)   BOOKS  I 

about  300  years.  Or,  again,  the  era  covered  by  the  his- 
torical books  may  be  divided  into — (1)  the  Conquest  of 
Canaan  (Joshua) ;  (2)  The  Rule  of  Judges  (Judges,  Ruth 
and  1  Sam.  1  to  12);  (3)  The  United  Monarchy  (1  Sam. 
12  to  1  Kings  12,  and  1  Chron.  1  to  2  Chron.  10);  (4) 
The  Two  Monarchies  (1  Kings  12  to  2  Kings  25  and  2 
Chron.  10  to  36) ;  (5)  The  Exile  and  Restoration  (Esther, 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah).  The  books  have  little  regard  to 
periods  in  the  history. 

3.  Authors. — The  authors  of  the  twelve  historical  books 
are  not  definitely  known.  According  to  Jewish  tradition 
the  chief  writers  of  them  were  Joshua,  Samuel,  Jeremiah, 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah.  Only  a  brief  notice  of  each  book 
can  be  given. 

4.  Joshua  is  so  named  from  the  exploits  of  the  hero  de- 
scribed in  it,  and  not  as  a  mark  of  authorship.  Modern 
critics  have  grouped  it  with  the  five  books  of  Moses,  and 
called  the  whole  "The  Hexateuch."  They  would  also 
date  its  composition  near  the  exilic  or  even  post-exilic  era 
and  by  some  unknown  writer.  Jewish  and  Christian  tradi- 
tion and  reverent  scholars  assign  its  authorship  to  Joshua 
(except  the  last  five  verses),  and  say  that  it  was  composed 
at  the  period  of  the  conquest  by  an  eye-witness,  and  from 
documents  of  that  time.  See  for  example  the  address  of 
Joshua  in  chaps.  23,  24,  and  the  record  of  his  interviews 
with  Jehovah,  chaps.  1,  3,  5,  7.  The  few  single  clauses 
which  destructive  critics  urge  as  proving  a  later  date  may 
have  been  marginal  notes  by  Samuel  or  some  prophet  of 
Saul  or  David's  time.  They  fail  to  prove  a  later  composi- 
tion of  the  book.  A  careful  study  of  Joshua  is  the  best 
foundation  for  a  right  mastery  of  Hebrew  history. 

5.  Judges. — This  book  is  so  named  because  it  records 


AUTHORSHIP   AND  COMPOSITION.  103 

the  deeds  of  some  of  the  early  judges  (about  thirteen)  who 
were  raised  up  to  deliver  Israel  from  the  oppression  of 
hostile  nations  and  tribes  on  its  borders.  The  length  of 
the  period  covered  by  this  book  is  variously  computed  from 
250  to  450  years.  The  supposed  reference  to  the  length 
of  this  period  in  the  speech  of  Paul  (Acts  13:  19,  20)  is 
now  generally  regarded  as  referring  not  alone  to  the  period 
of  the  judges,  but  to  the  possession  of  the  land  from  the 
Abraham ic  promise  to  Joshua.  "  He  gave  them  their  land 
for  an  inheritance,  for  about  four  hundred  and  fifty  years : 
and  after  these  things  he  gave  them  judges  until  Samuel" 
(Acts  13  :  19,  20,  Revised  Version).  It  is  evidently  a  book 
of  annals.  The  author  is  not  known,  though  the  Talmud 
ascribes  it  to  Samuel,  and  this  is  a  popular  belief.  It  ap- 
pears to  have  been  gathered  from  various  documents,  to 
impress  moral  and  religious  lessons.  The  difficulties  of  the 
book  are  the  chronology,  apparently  two  introductions,  and 
the  adjustment  of  the  rule  of  the  several  judges.  It  con- 
tains some  of  the  most  deeply  interesting  biographical 
sketches  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  reader  never  wearies 
of  the  stories  of  Gideon,  Samson,  Deborah  and  Jeph- 
thah. 

6.  Ruth. — The  book  itself  fixes  the  period  when  the 
beautiful  heroine  lived.  It  was  "  in  the  days  when  the 
judges  ruled"  (Ruth  1:  1).  But  this  does  not  fix  the 
date  of  its  composition.  Unless  the  closing  verses  were 
added  by  another  than  the  original  author,  it  cannot  have 
been  written  before  the  time  of  David.  In  the  Hebrew 
Bible  it  is  placed  as  the  fifth  book  after  the  Psalms.  In  the 
Septuagint  it  follows  Judges,  as  in  English  Bibles.  His- 
torically it  may  be  counted  an  appendix  to  Judges  and  an  in- 
troduction to  the  books  of  Samuel.    It  may  have  been  written 


104  HISTORICAL   (O.  T.)  BOOKS! 

by  Samuel,  as  one  Jewish  tradition  asserts.  The  Ararna- 
isms,  which  are  supposed  by  some  to  indicate  a  later  date, 
are  represented  as  spoken  by  foreigners  and  are  not  in  the 
language  of  the  author.  They  are  not  conclusive  against 
an  early  date.  Nor  is  the  mention  of  "plucking  off  the 
shoe"  against,  but  rather  in  favor  of,  its  composition  as 
early  as  the  period  of  David.  The  book  is  a  touching  and 
dramatic  picture  of  domestic  life  in  that  period. 

7.  Samuel. — The  two  books  of  Samuel  were  originally 
one  in  the  Hebrew  Bible.  Even  the  Massoretic  note  at  the 
end  of  the  second  book,  giving  the  number  of  verses,  treats 
them  as  one  book.  The  Septuagint  regarded  the  books  of 
Samuel  and  of  Kings  as  a  complete  history  of  the  Hebrew 
kingdom,  and  divided  them  into  four,  calling  them  "  Books 
of  the  Kingdoms."  This  division  is  followed  in  the  Latin 
and  Douay  versions,  where  they  are  named  the  1st,  2d,  3d 
and  4th  Books  of  Kings.  The  division  was  introduced 
into  Hebrew  printed  Bibles  in  15 18. 

The  author  of  the  first  two,  now  called  1  and  2  Samuel, 
is  unknown.  The  name  of  the  books  probably  arises  from 
the  fact  that  Samuel  is  the  hero  of  the  first  part.  Samuel 
could  have  written  only  twenty-four  chapters  of  the  first 
book,  since  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  records  his  death. 
The  contents  indicate  that  official  records  may  have  been 
consulted  by  the  writer,  and  national  hymns  were  incor- 
porated in  the  work,  as  the  song  of  Hannah  (1  Sam.  2  :  1- 
10) ;  David's  song  over  Abner  (2  Sam.  3  :  33,  34) ;  his 
thanksgiving  song,  and  his  farewell  song  (2  Sam.  22 ;  23  : 

1-7). 

The  date  of  composition  was  not  later  than  Solomon  s 
time,  as  the  language  proves.  "It  is  pure  Hebrew, 
free  from  Aramaisms  and  late  forms.     Constructions  such 


AUTHORSHIP   AND    COMPOSITION.  105 

as  are  found  in  Kings  are  not  found  in  Samuel."1  The 
difficulties  are  not  important,  being  the  adjustment  of  the 
chronology,  the  variations  between  the  Hebrew  and  Greek 
texts,  and  the  apparent  discrepancies,  as  i  Sam.  23 :  19  ;  24: 
22,  and  ch.  26. 

8.  Kings. — The  two  books  of  Kings  (one  in  Hebrew) 
are  a  continuation  of  the  history  in  the  books  of  Samuel. 
The  author  is  not  certainly  known.  Jewish  tradition 
names  Jeremiah,  and  the  language  and  style  favor  the  tra- 
dition. Later  scholars  have  conjectured  that  the  author 
was  Ezra  or  Baruch.  The  writer  used  existing  records,  as 
"Acts  of  Solomon,"  "  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Judah  " 
and  "  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Israel  "  (1  Kings  11  :  41 ; 
14:  *o,  29).  Yet  there  is  a  unity,  a  peculiar  plan  and 
symmetry  of  purpose  in  the  books,  indicative  of  a  well- 
wrought  work,  and  not  a  mere  compilation.  The  date  can- 
not be  earlier  than  the  exile.  It  probably  belongs  to  the 
last  half  of  the  period  of  the  exile.  Recent  Assyrian  dis- 
coveries have  thrown  much  new  light  upon  the  various 
dynasties  mentioned  in  the  books.  The  obscurities  are  not 
many  nor  important,  and  scholars  have  suggested  various 
reasonable  explanations.  These  books  close  the  "Earlier 
Prophets"  of  the  Hebrew  Bible. 

9.  Chronicles. — These  two  books  were  also  originally 
one,  and  are  placed  at  the  end  of  the  Hebrew  Bible.  The 
Hebrew  title  is  "The  Diaries"  or  "The  Affairs  of  the 
Times."  The  Septuagint  calls  them  "  Paralipomcna"  or 
"Things  Omitted,"  under  the  erroneous  idea  that  they 
were  intended  to  supply  omissions  in  the  history  in  the  four 
books  of  Kings.     Jerome  named  them  "Chronicles,"  and 


1Prof.  O.  S.  Stearns,  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament,  p.  37. 
7 


106  HISTORICAL   (O.  T.)   BOOKS: 

was  followed  by  Luther  and  by  the  English  translators. 
Their  composition  is  ascribed  to  Ezra  by  Jewish  and  Chris- 
tian tradition,  and  in  language  and  style  they  resemble  the 
book  of  Ezra.  The  Chronicles  are  clearly  independent 
history,  not  written  to  supply  omissions  in  Kings,  but  to 
give  the  returned  exiles  information  needful  for  them  in  re- 
settling the  land  of  Canaan.  The  tribal  and  family  de- 
scent would  be  very  important  in  settling  inheritances. 
Critics  who  wish  to  fix  the  composition  of  the  Pentateuch 
after  the  exile  have  very  sharply,  but  most  unsuccessfully, 
assailed  the  books  of  Chronicles.  The  accounts  of  the  tem- 
ple service,  the  covenant,  the  reforms  under  Josiah  and 
Hezekiah,  are  strong  confirmations  of  the  earlier  origin  of 
the  Pentateuch.  The  date  of  Chronicles  cannot  be  fixed 
earlier  than  the  restoration  from  exile ;  and  as  the  history 
ends  with  the  decree  of  Cyrus,  that  may  be  assumed  as  the 
time  of  their  composition.  Much  of  the  work  is  evidently 
based  upon  existing  and  apparently  official  documents. 
For  example,  the  first  nine  chapters  appear  to  cite  tribal 
genealogical  records ;  and  in  chaps.  23-26  the  priestly 
records  seem  to  be  the  basis  of  the  history.  In  fact,  eleven 
sources  are  distinctly  named:  "the  book  of  Samuel  the 
seer,"  "of  Nathan  the  prophet,"  "  of  Gad  the  seer,"  "the 
prophecy  of  Ahijah,"  "the  visions"  or  "the  story"  of 
"  Iddo  the  seer  against  Jeroboam,"  another  by  him  "con- 
cerning genealogies,"  "the  book  of  Shemaiah  the  proph- 
et," "the  book  of  Jehu,"  "the  book  of  the  kings  of 
Israel,"  "  the  book  of  the  kings  of  Israel  and  Judah,"  and 
a  book  by  Isaiah  ;  see  1  Chron.  29  :  29  ;  2  Chron.  9  :  29  ; 
12:  15;  13:  22;  16:  11  ;  20:  34;  26  :  22;  27:  7;  32  :  32. 
These  numerous  references  to  existing  books  containing 
more  full  records  of  the  events  very  briefly  mentioned  in 


AUTHORSHIP   AND   COMPOSITION.  107 

the  Chronicles  show  how  abundant  were  the  written 
sources  to  which  the  author  had  access,  and  how  familiar 
he  was  with  the  contents  of  those  original  records.  They 
tend  strongly  to  confirm  the  trustworthiness  of  his 
chronicle  ;  and  this  being  maintained,  the  strongest  attacks 
of  the  newer  criticism  will  fall  or  can  be  effectively  repelled. 

10.  Ezra. — This  book  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  is  the  tenth 
after  the  Psalms.  The  Jews  (Josephus  and  the  Talmud), 
Origen  and  Jerome,  regard  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  as  one 
book  in  two  parts.  But  Nehemiah  has  its  own  title  in  He- 
brew. The  two  books  are  called  Esdras  and  Nehemiah 
in  the  Septuagint,  and  i  and  2  Esdras  in  the  Vulgate. 
Historically  Ezra  follows  close  after  Chronicles  ;  hence  the 
order  in  our  Bibles  is  in  better  accord  with  the  contents 
than  the  order  in  Hebrew  Bibles.  The  author,  according 
to  the  Jews,  was  Ezra.  Modern  critics  admit  that  he  wrote 
a  portion,  but  deem  the  whole  a  compilation  by  some  un- 
known though  contemporaneous  writer.  A  portion  of  it  is 
written  in  Chaldee  or  Aramaic,  e.  g.,  chaps.  4  :  8  to  6  :  6 
and  7  :  1-26  ;  but  these  are  probably  from  public  records. 
The  varying  use  of  the  first  and  third  persons  in  the  last 
portion  of  chaps.  6  to  10  has  a  parallel  in  Daniel  and  Isaiah. 
The  writer  in  the  latter  case  speaks  of  himself  historically ; 
in  the  former  he  writes  of  events  which  he  witnessed.  That 
Ezra  was  the  author  has  been  fairly  sustained.  The  date  must 
be  placed  in  the  fifth  century  before  Christ,  in  the  age  of  Cy- 
rus, etc.,  and  after  Ezra's  return  to  Jerusalem  with  the  exiles. 

11.  Nehemiah. — This  book  is  the  eleventh  in  order  after 
Psalms  in  the  Hebrew  Bible.  The  author  of  the  first  seven 
chapters  was  surely  Nehemiah,  for  it  is  so  avowed  in  the 
book  itself.  The  writer  of  chaps.  8-13  is  questioned  by 
many,  although  Keil  accepts   Nehemiah   as   their  author. 


108  HISTORICAL   (O.  T.)    BOOKS  I 

The  objections  urged  against  his  authorship  of  this  portion 
are  that  the  narrative  changes  to  the  third  person,  and  Ne- 
hemiah  is  spoken  of  as  "  Tirshatha"  (Neh.  8  :  9),  and  that 
the  name  of  Jaddua  appears  as  high  priest  (Neh.  12  :  1- 
26),  who  lived  in  the  time  of  Alexander,  a  century  later 
than  Nehemiah.  But  the  other  portions  of  chap.  12  and 
chap.  13  are  usually  credited  to  Nehemiah.  The  language 
of  the  book  has  a  strong  infusion  of  Aramaisms  and  of  words 
of  Persian  origin.  After  an  interval  of  about  twelve  years, 
it  carries  on  the  history  of  Ezra  for  about  thirty  years,  un- 
til the  temple  of  Zerubbabel  was  rebuilt.  It  is  the  latest  of 
the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament. 

12.  Esther. — Historically  this  book  belongs  to  the 
period  of  the  exiles,  previous  to  Nehemiah  and  a  portion 
of  Ezra.  Some  regard  it  as  an  episode  in  the  history  of 
those  Israelites  that  did  not  return  from  exile,  and  an  illus- 
tration of  their  moral  decline.  The  incident  related  in  the 
book  of  Esther  gave  rise  to  the  feast  of  Purim,  still  cele- 
brated among  the  Jews.  This  book  is  the  eighth  following 
the  Psalms  in  the  Hebrew  Bible.  It  appears  to  have  been 
regarded  as  an  appendix  to  the  history  of  the  exilic  period, 
as  Ruth  was  to  Judges,  and  hence  in  the  Septuagint  was 
added  to  Ezra  and  Nehemiah.  It  does  not  contain  the 
name  of  God.  Perhaps  the  name  was  intentionally 
omitted,  so  that  the  book  could  be  read  at  a  joyous 
festival  without  irreverence.  It  forcibly  illustrates  God's 
providence.  The  author,  some  say,  was  Ezra ;  others  say 
Mordecai.  The  date  cannot  be  definitely  stated,  although 
the  events  surely  occurred  between  480  and  430  B.C.  As  it 
seems  to  have  been  written  by  an  eye-witness,  internal  evi- 
dence favors  Mordecai  as  author  and  480  to  470  B.C.  as  the 
date.     The  book  contains  many  Persian  words;  but  the 


AUTHORSHIP    AND    COMPOSITION.  109 

literary  character  is  high,  and  the  style  lively.  The  sum- 
mary execution  of  Haman  and  the  sudden  elevation  of 
Mordecai  find  frequent  illustrations  in  later  history  of  Orien- 
tal courts. 

13.  These  twelve  books  of  the  Old  Testament  contain 
the  richest  history  of  a  race.  Written  by  men  illumined 
by  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  grand  purposes  of  God's  provi- 
dence are  unfolded  with  marvellous  compactness  and  clear- 
ness. The  long  succession  of  bloody  struggles,  the  aston- 
ishing deliverances  of  God's  people,  their  weak  and  wicked 
relapses  into  sin,  the  glorious  power  of  Jehovah  manifested 
to  them,  and  preparing  them  for  the  future  advent  of  Mes- 
siah, the  promised  Redeemer,  give  diversity  and  charm  to 
the  history  and  instruction  to  the  devout  mind. 

Of  the  purpose  and  mission  of  the  two  Testaments  Mr. 
Gladstone  says : 

14.  General  Character. — "As  the  heavens  cover  the 
earth  from  east  to  west,  so  the  Scripture  covers  and  com- 
prehends the  whole  field  of  the  destiny  of  man.  The 
whole  field  is  reached  by  its  moral  and  potential  energy,  as 
a  provision  enduring  to  the  end  of  time.  But  it  is  marvel- 
lous to  consider  how  large  a  portion  of  it  lies  directly 
within  the  domain  of  the  Old  Testament.  .  .  .  The  cor- 
roborative legends  of  Assyria,  ascertained  by  modern  re- 
search, concerning  the  Creation  and  the  Flood,  to  which 
we  know  not  what  further  additions  may  still  progressively 
be  made,  carry  us  up,  it  may  be  finally  said, 

"  '  To  the  first  syllable  of  recorded  time.' 

"  Historic  evidence  does  not  warrant  our  carrying  back- 
wards the  probable  existence  of  the  Adamic  race  for  more 
than  some  such  epoch  as  from  4000  to  6000  years  anterior 


110  HISTORICAL  (O.   T.)    BOOKS: 

to  the  advent  of  Christ.  And  if,  as  appears  likely,  the 
Creation  story  has  come  down  from  the  beginning,  the 
Christian  may  feel  a  lively  interest  in  observing  that,  for  by 
far  the  larger  portion  of  human  history,  the  refreshing  rain 
of  divine  inspiration  has  descended,  with  comparatively 
short  intervals,  from  heaven  upon  earth,  and  the  records 
of  it  have  been  collected  and  preserved  in  the  Sacred  Vol- 
ume. Apart  from  every  question  of  literary  form  and  of 
detail,  we  now  trace  the  probable  origins  of  our  Sacred 
Books  far  back  beyond  Moses  and  his  time.  And  so  we 
have  a  marvellous  picture  presented  to  us,  not  only  all-pre- 
vailing for  the  imagination  and  the  heart  of  man,  but  as  I 
suppose  quite  unexampled  in  its  historical  appeal  to  the  hu- 
man intelligence.  The  whole  human  record  is  covered  and 
bound  together  in  that  same  unwearied  and  inviolable  con- 
tinuity, which  weaves  into  a  tissue  the  six  Mosaic  days  of 
gradually  advancing  creations,  and  fastens  them  on  at  the 
hither  end  to  the  advancing  stages  of  Adamic,  and,  in  due 
course,  of  subsequent  history. 

"We  find  then  that,  apart  from  the  question  of  moral 
purity  and  elevation,  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament 
appear  to  be  distinguished  from  the  sacred  books  possessed 
by  various  nations  in  several  vital  particulars.  They  deal 
with  the  Adamic  race  as  a  whole.  They  begin  with  the 
preparation  of  the  earth  for  the  habitation  and  use  of  man. 
They  then,  from  his  first  origin,  draw  downwards  a  thread 
of  personal  history.  This  thread  is  enlarged  into  a  web  as, 
from  being  personal,  the  narrative  becomes  national,  and 
eventually  includes  the  whole  race  of  man.  They  are  not 
given  once  for  all,  as  by  Confucius  or  Zoroaster  in  their 
respective  spheres ;  they  do  not  deliver  a  mere  code  of 
morals  or  of  legislation,  but  they  purport  to  disclose  a  close 


AUTHORSHIP    AND    COMPOSITION.  Ill 

and  continuing  superintendence  from  on  high  over  human 
affairs.  And  the  whole  is  doubly  woven  into  one:  first,  by 
a  chain  of  divine  action,  and  of  human  instructors  acting 
under  divine  authority,  which  is  never  broken  until  the 
time  when  political  servitude,  like  another  Egyptian  cap- 
tivity, has  become  the  appointed  destiny  of  the  nation; 
secondly,  by  the  Messianic  bond,  by  the  light  of  prophecy 
shining  in  a  dark  place,  and  directing  onwards  the  minds 
of  devout  men  to  the  "fulness  of  time  "  and  the  birth  of 
the  wondrous  Child,  so  as  effectually  to  link  the  old  sacred 
books  to  the  dispensation  of  the  Advent,  and  to  carry  for- 
ward their  office  until  the  final  day  of  doom.  May  it  not 
boldly  be  asked,  what  parallel  to  such  an  outline  as  this  can 
be  supplied  by  any  of  the  sacred  books  preserved  among 
any  other  of  the  races  of  the  world  ?  So  far,  then,  the 
office  and  work  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  presented  to  us 
by  its  own  contents,  is  without  a  compeer  among  the  old 
religions.  It  deals  with  the  case  of  man  as  a  whole.  .  .  . 
It  is  a  history  of  sin,  and  of  redemption." 


CHAPTER  XI. 

HEBREW   POETRY   AND    POETICAL   BOOKS. 

i.  The  Oriental  mind  delights  in  figures,  metaphors  and 
in  brilliantly-imaginative  forms  of  speech.  The  Hebrews 
were  also  in  surroundings  exceedingly  favorable  for  sub- 
lime poetic  creations.  Poetry  was  their  delight  from  the 
earliest  beginnings  of  their  history.  More  than  one-third 
of  the  entire  Old  Testament  is  poetry.  Its  poetry  is  among 
the  oldest,  the  purest  and  the  most  sublime  in  the  world. 
It  is  fitted  to  stir  the  deepest  spiritual  nature  of  man  in  all 
ages.  In  other  languages  much  of  the  poetry  relates  to 
the  temporal  interests  of  the  people;  Hebrew  poetry  is 
truly  the  daughter  of  religion. 

2.  Forms  of  Hebrew  Poetry. — Strictly  there  is  neither 
epic  nor  dramatic  poetry  in  Hebrew.  The  reason  is  ob- 
vious. Epic  poetry  springs  from  an  effort  to  glorify  human 
greatness — the  heroic  in  man ;  the  Hebrew  was  taught  to 
glorify  God.  Hebrew  poetry  is  almost  wholly  lyric  and 
didactic,  and  some  add  also  gnomic.  There  are  no  lyrics 
in  the  world  comparable  with  the  Psalms  of  David,  no 
gnomic  poetry  equal  to  the  Proverbs,  and  no  didactic  poem 
so  perfect  in  form,  so  profound  and  majestic  in  thought  or 
so  exalted  and  spiritual  in  conception  as  the  book  of  Job. 

3.  Rhyme  and  metre,  common  in  modern  poetry,  are 
seldom  found  in  Hebrew.  Josephus  tried  to  find  hexame- 
ters in  the  songs  of  Ex.  15  and  Deut.  32,  and  trimeters  or 

(U2) 


HEBREW    POETRY    AND    POETICAL    BOOKS.  113 

pentameters  in  the  Psalms.  Eusebius  sought  an  heroic 
measure  of  sixteen  syllables;  while  Jerome  represented 
Job  as  written  in  dactyls  and  spondees,  comparing  Hebrew 
poetry  with  the  Greek  poems  of  Pindar,  Alcaeus  and  Sap- 
pho. Later  scholars,  as  Sir  W.  Jones,  Grove  and  Saal- 
chiitz,  have  applied  similar  rules ;  but  no  such  system  of 
metres  can  be  found  in  Hebrew  on  any  method  of  vocal- 
izing now  known,  nor  without  destroying  the  Massoretic 
pointing.  Bickell  would  make  it  conform  to  the  Syriac, 
which  is  plausible,  but  has  not  found  much  favor  with 
scholars. 

4.  Parallelisms. — Hebrew  poetry,  as  Lowth  and  others 
have  shown,  consists  chiefly  of  parallelisms  and  a  certain 
swing  and  balance  in  their  sentences  which  give  an  inde- 
scribable charm  to  their  poetic  compositions. 

The  parallelisms  in  Hebrew  have  been  roughly  divided 
into  three  kinds:  (i)  Synonymous,  that  is,  where  each  line 
of  the  distich  or  tristich  has  the  same  thought,  but  in 
varied  expression  ;  (2)  Antithetic,  where  the  thought  of  the 
second  member  of  the  parallelism  is  in  contrast  with  that 
of  the  first ;  and  (3)  Synthetic,  where  the  thought  is  cumu- 
lative upon  the  same  topic. 

5.  Alliteration  and  assonance  are  frequently  used  in 
Hebrew  poetry,  and  rhyme  occasionally,  but  the  latter 
seldom  runs  beyond  two  or  three  lines. 

The  Hebrew  poetic  writers  delighted  in  the  older  and 
sometimes  the  fuller  forms  of  words.  They  use  not  the 
learned  or  artificial,  but  the  simpler  and  more  archaic 
speech,  giving  strength  and  music  to  the  movement  of  their 
sentences. 

6.  Poetic  Books. — There  are  five  so-called  poetical  books 
in  the  Old  Testament :  Job,  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes, 


114  HEBREW   POETRY   AND  POETICAL  BOOKS. 

and  Song  of  Solomon.  But  beside  these,  large  portions 
of  other  books  are  in  poetic  language.  All  the  prophetical 
books  except  Daniel  are  poetry.  The  girls  of  Shiloh  sang 
as  they  gathered  grapes ;  the  maidens  of  Gilead  chanted 
the  story  of  Jephthah's  daughter ;  the  boys  learned  David's 
song  of  lament  over  Jonathan,  and  hunters  and  shepherds 
whiled  away  the  tediousness  of  the  hunt  and  watch,  by 
songs  and  the  flute.1 

7.  Early  Songs. — The  earliest  specimen  of  poetry  in  the 
Old  Testament  is  Lamech's  Sword  Song.  Some  of  the 
most  noted  of  Hebrew  songs,  outside  the  poetical  books, 
are  those  of  Moses  and  Miriam,  of  Balaam,  Deborah  and 
Hannah.  The  following  list,  though  incomplete,  will  be 
helpful  to  the  student : 

Lamech's  Sword  Song Gen.  4  :  23,  24. 

Noah's  Song Gen.  9  :  25-27. 

About  Rebekah Gen.  25  :  23. 

Isaac's  Blessings Gen.  27  :  27-29,  39,  40. 

Jacob's  Farewell Gen.  49  :  2-27. 

Moses'  and  Miriam's  Song Ex.  15  :  1-19,  21. 

War  Songs,  etc Num.  21  :  14,  15,  17,  18,  27-30. 

Balaam's  Prophecies Num.  23  :  7-10,  18-24;  24  :  3~9>  lS"2A' 

Moses'  Prophetic  Song Deut.  32  :  1-43. 

Moses'  Blessing Deut.  33  :  2-29. 

Joshua  to  the  Sun. Josh.  10  :  12,  13. 

Song  of  Deborah  and  Barak  Judg.  5  :  2-2 1. 

Samson's  Riddle  Song Judg.  15  :  16. 

Hannah's  Magnificat 1  Sam.  2  :  1-10. 

David's  Song  of  the  Bow. . .  .2  Sam.  1  :  19-27. 

David's  Song  over  Abner 2  Sam.  3 :  33,  34. 

David's  Deliverance 2  Sam.  22 :  2-51  (cf.  Ps.  18). 

David's  Last  Words 2  Sam.  23  :  1-7. 

David's  Thanksgiving 1  Chron.  16  :  8-36. 

1  See  Reuss,  Hebrew  Poetry,  Herzog's  Enc, 


HEBREW   POETRY   AND   POETICAL   BOOKS.  115 

Hczekiah's  Song Isa.  38  :  10-20. 

Jonah's  Prayer  Song Jonah  2  :  2-9. 

Habakkuk's  Prayer  Song Hab.  3  :  2-19. 

There  are  four  original  songs  in  the  New  Testament  cast 
in  the  spirit  of  Hebrew  poetry : 

Magnificat Luke  1  :  46-55. 

Benedictus Luke  1  :  68-80. 

Gloria  in  Excelsis Luke  2  :  14. 

Nunc  Dimittis Luke  2  :  29-33. 

8.  The  Psalms. — The  book  of  Psalms  in  the  Hebrew  Bible 
was  the  first  of  the  K'-ihubim,  or  "  Writings."  The  Psalms, 
Proverbs  and  Job  were  regarded  as  pre-eminently  poetical 
books,  and  the  Massorites  distinguished  them  by  a  peculiar 
accentuation.  The  Psalms  were  called  "  Sepher  T'helim," 
or  "  Book  of  Praises."  The  Greeks  called  it  " Psalmos" 
from  which  the  English  "Psalms"  is  derived. 

9.  Groups  of  Psalms. — The  Psalms  are  counted  as  one 
book,  but  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  are  divided  into  five  collec- 
tions, rather  inaptly  termed  "books"  in  the  Revised 
English  Version. 

The  end  of  each  of  the  first  four  "books"  is  indicated 
by  a  doxology. 

The  books  are:  (I.)  Ps.  1-41  ;  (II.)  Ps.  42-72;  (III.) 
Ps.  73-89;  (IV.)  Ps.  90-106;  (V.)  Ps.  107-150.  The 
topics  of  the  Psalms  have  been  compared  to  an  oratorio  in 
five  parts  :  (1)  Decline  of  man  ;  (2)  Revival ;  (3)  Plaintive 
complaint ;  (4)  Response  to  the  complaint ;  (5)  Final 
thanksgiving  and  triumph. 

This  five-fold  division  of  the  Psalms  is  very  ancient, 
but  when  or  by  whom  it  was  made  is  uncertain.  Some 
ascribe  it  to  Nehemiah  or  his  time ;   it  certainly  is  two  or 


116  HEBREW   POETRY  AND   POETICAL  BOOKS. 

three  centuries  older  than  the  Christian  era.  The  division 
appears  in  the  Septuagint.  Why  it  was  made  is  not  clear. 
Some  conjecture  that  it  was  in  accord  with  the  supposed 
chronological  order  of  the  Psalms,  or  was  an  arrangement 
according  to  authors,  topics,  or  for  liturgical  use.  The  col- 
lection could  not  have  been  completed  before  the  time  of 
Ezra.  About  fifty  Psalms  are  quoted  in  the  New  Testament. 
10.  Authors. — The  titles  or  inscriptions  of  the  Psalms  are 
not  by  the  original  authors,  but  belong  to  an  early  age. 
They  are  attached  to  101  psalms.  The  49  not  having  titles, 
the  Talmud  calls  "  Orphan  Psalms."  According  to  these 
titles,  73  psalms  are  ascribed  to  David,1  12  to  Asaph  one 
of  David's  singers,  12  to  the  sons  of  Korah2  a  priestly 
family  of  singers  of  David's  time,  2  (7 2d  and  127th)  to 
Solomon,  1  (90th)  to  Moses,  and  1  (89th)  to  Ethan. 
The  other  49  are  anonymous.  But  the  Septuagint  assigns 
the  127th  to  Jeremiah,  the  146th  to  Haggai,  and  the  147th 
to  Zechariah.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  great  Hallel 
songs,  Ps.  115-118,  and  the  famous  alphabetic  hymn,  the 
119th,  are  among  the  anonymous  songs. 

11.  Classification  of  Songs. — The  most  ancient  classification, 
aside  from  the  division  into  five  collections,  is  also  found 
in  the  titles.  The  meaning  of  these  is  obscure.  Some  are 
termed  Shir,  a  solo  for  the  voice  ;  Mizmor,  song  of  praise 
accompanied  with  an  instrument ;  Maschil,  ode  or  didactic 
song  ;  Michtam,  a  catch-word  poem  (Delitzsch) ;  Shiggaion, 
an  excited  ode ;   Thephillah,  a  prayer-song;  Shir  jedidoth, 


1  The  Septuagint  ascribes  85  psalms  to  David.  The  New  Testament 
cites  Pss.  2  and  95  as  his.  This  reduces  the  number  by  anonymous 
writers  to  34.  But  Delitzsch  thinks  only  50  can  be  defended  as  David's 
from  internal  evidence. 

2  If,  however,  Ps.  88  is  ascribed  to  Hernan,  as  some  render  the  title, 
then  only  1 1  were  by  the  sons  of  Korah. 


HEBREW    POETRY   AND    POETICAL    BOOK  117 

a  song  of  loves ;  Shir  hamma  'a  loth,  a  song  of  ascent  or 
pilgrim  songs ;  Kinah,  dirge  or  elegy.  Modern  groups 
are  based  upon  the  contents,  as  seven  (some  say  eight) 
penitential(6th,  25th,  32d  [38th],  51st,  102c!,  130th,  143d), 
seven  imprecatory  psalms  (35th,  52c!,  58th,  59th,  69th, 
109th,  137th),  pilgrim  songs,  psalms  of  thanksgiving,  of 
adoration,  of  faith  and  hope,  Messianic  psalms,  and  historic 
psalms. 

Some  psalms  have  parallelisms  or  longer  stanzas,  each 
beginning  with  an  initial  letter  corresponding  to  the  twenty- 
two  letters  of  the  Hebrew  alphabet.  There  are  seven  of 
these  alphabetic  psalms  and  five  other  alphabetic  poems 
in  the  Old  Testament.  Some  psalms  are  choral,  as  24th, 
115th,  135th  ;  some  gradational,  as  121st,  124th.  Of  the 
psalms  ascribed  to  David,  several  have  Chaldaic  or  Aramaic 
forms  that  betray  a  later  author. 

12.  Proverbs. — The  Hebrew  title  to  this  book  is  Mishk 
Sh'Iomo,  "  Proverbs  of  Solomon,"  so  called  from  the  in- 
troductory words.  The  Hebrew  word  for  proverbs  is  used 
in  a  variety  of  meanings,  as  pithy  saying,  parable,  aphorism 
or  maxim,  and  for  more  extended  illustration.  (See  Micah 
2:4;  Hab.  2  :  6 ;  1  Sam.  10 :  12;  Prov.  1:1;  Eccles.  1 2 : 
9  ;  and  Num.  23  :  7-10.)  The  soul  of  a  proverb  is  brevity 
and  great  wisdom.  It  condenses  the  result  of  a  life  of  wise 
observation  and  varied  experience  into  a  few  words,  a  single 
parallelism.  With  Orientals  it  was  and  is  popular,  because 
easily  remembered.  Secular  literature  has  several  collec- 
tions of  proverbs,  as  the  "  Sayings  of  the  Seven  Wise  Men 
of  Greece,'*  the  "  Golden  Songs  ascribed  to  Pythagoras," 
and  Arabic  proverbs.  But  the  Proverbs  of  the  Bible  are 
unequalled  in  wit  and  wisdom.  They  abound  in  polished 
and  sparkling  gems  of  wisdom,  bearing  the  stamp  of  in- 


118  HEBREW   POETRY   AND   POETICAL   BOOKS. 

spiration  (Prov.  1:7).  The  Proverbs  are  divided  into 
seven  parts:  (1)  chap.  1  :  1-6;  (2)  1 :  7  to  chap,  g;  (3) 
chaps.  10  to  22 :  16;  (4)  22 :  17  to  chap.  24;  (5)  chaps.  25 
to  29  ;  (6)  chap.  30  to  31  :  9  ;  (7)  chap.  31  :  10-31. 

13.  Authors  of  Proverbs. — The  Proverbs  are  ascribed  to 
Solomon,1  and  it  is  clear  he  wrote  or  compiled  the  most  of 
them.  Yet  there  were  several  other  authors  of  the  latter 
portion,  as  the  men  of  Hezekiah,  Agur,  Lemuel.  (See 
Prov.  1 :  1  ;  10 :  1 ;  25  :  1 ;  30 :  1 ;  31  :  1.) 

14.  The  date  of  the  complete  collection  is  certainly  not 
older  than  Hezekiah,  though  the  greater  portion  was  in  ex- 
istence from  the  time  of  Solomon. 

15.  The  Structure  is  that  of  poetic  parallelisms,  in  lines 
of  single,  double,  triple  or  more  couplets.  The  sense  or 
thought  is  usually  either  synonymous  or  antithetic  in  these 
couplets.     For  example — 

"  Happy  is  the  man  that  findeth  wisdom, 
And  the  man  that  getteth  understanding"  (3  :  13), 

is  synonymous  in  thought. 

"  A  wise  son  maketh  a  glad  father: 
But  a  foolish  son  is  the  heaviness  [grief]  of  his  mother"  (10:  1), 

is  an  antithetic  parallelism. 

"  As  a  bird  that  wandereth  from  her  nest, 
So  is  a  man  that  wandereth  from  his  place  "  (27  :  8), 

is  an  instance  of  simple  comparison. 

"  Wine  is  a  mocker,  strong  drink  a  brawler; 
And  whosoever  erreth  [reeleth]  thereby  is  not  wise  "  (20  : 1), 

1  There  is  a  Jewish  tradition  that  Solomon  composed  the  Song  of 
Songs  in  his  youth,  Proverbs  in  mature  manhood,  and  Ecclesiastes  in 
his  old  age. 


HEBREW    POETRY    AND   POETICAL   BOOKS.  119 

is  an   example  of  amplification  of  thought,  containing  a 
reason  for  the  warning.     (See  also  3:3,  27  :  10.) 

The  book  of  Proverbs  is  the  storehouse  whence  all  Chris 
tians  and  some  heathen  peoples  have  drawn  practical  \vi 
dom,  and  it  teaches  that  the  true  source  of  wisdom  is  Je- 
hovah. 

16.  Job. — This  book  is  so  named  not  as  indicating  the 
author,  but  the  hero. 

Author. — The  book  itself  does  not  indicate  the  author. 
The  Jews  and  early  Christian  writers  ascribed  it  to  Moses. 
He  was  well  fitted  to  write  such  a  work,  and  in  Midian 
would  be  wont  to  meditate  on  such  a  theme.  The  contents 
in  the  main  indicate  that  it  was  written  before  the  priest- 
hood, ceremonial  worship  and  law  were  instituted.  Some 
say  the  writer  was  Job.  Later  scholars  ascribe  it  to  the  age 
of  Solomon,  chiefly  on  the  ground  that  the  artistic  structure 
presupposes  higher  training  than  the  Mosaic  period,  and 
that  there  are  some  Aramaisms  and  allusions  to  the  Mosaic 
law.  Advanced  critics  would  assign  it  to  the  exilic  age, 
depending  mainly  on  the  linguistic  peculiarities  to  support 
their  view.  Proofs  from  recent  discoveries  have  appeared 
of  an  exceeding  high  state  of  art  and  knowledge  existing 
in  Assyria  and  in  Egypt  earlier  than  the  Mosaic  era,  weak- 
ening the  argument  for  a  late  origin.  The  Aramaisms  may 
be  accounted  for  on  the  view  that  the  book  was  written  in 
Edom,  Arabia  or  the  Euphrates  valley,  and  the  supposed 
allusions  to  the  Mosaic  law  are  obscure,  probably  only  co- 
incidences of  thought.  The  language  fits  the  eastern  re- 
gion. Compare  Moabite  Stone  inscription.  The  date  of 
the  book  depends  upon  the  authorship. 

17.  The  Structure  of  Job. — It  is  a  didactic,  almost  dra- 
matic, poem,  in  five  parts.     It  might  be  counted  a  drama 


120  HEBREW   POETRY   AND   POETICAL   BOOKS. 

of  life,  a  tragedy  with  a  happy  and  not  a  tragic  end.  The 
dramatis  persona  or  characters  are  Jehovah,  Satan,  Job, 
Job's  wife  and  his  children,  Eliphaz,  Bildad,  Zophar  and 
Elihu.  The  five  parts  are:  (i)  Prologue  (chaps,  i,  2);  (2) 
Interviews  with  three  friends  (3-32)  ;  (3)  with  Elihu  (32- 
38);  (4)  with  Jehovah  (38-41;;  (5)  Job's  submission  (41,42). 

18.  The  object  of  the  book  is  not  to  solve  the  problem  of 
evil,  though  it  throws  some  side  light  upon  it.  It  shows 
that  all  calamities  do  not  come  as  judgments  for  sin.  It 
teaches  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life.  The  main  object  is 
indicated  by  the  prologue  and  the  tart  question  of  Satan, 
"  Doth  Job  serve  God  for  naught  ?  "  The  chief  purpose  of 
the  book  is  to  show  that  true  religion  does  not  spring  from 
any  form  of  selfishness.  It  also  shows  the  rectitude  of  the 
divine  government  when  the  righteous  are  afflicted.  Spe- 
cial trials  do  not  imply  special  guilt.  They  may  exhibit 
God's  benevolent  design  toward  the  sufferer,  and  they  are 
intended  to  beget  submission  to  God's  holy  will. 

19.  Is  the  Book  History  ? — This  is  answered  yes,  strictly 
so,  by  Josephus,  Jewish  rabbins  and  early  Christian  writers. 
Some  modern  critics  say  decisively  no,  but  a  mere  poetic 
creation.  The  more  reverent,  thoughtful  scholars  accept 
it  as  based  on  historical  facts,  embellished  or  draped  by 
rich  Oriental  figures  and  inspired  poetic  descriptions.  Job 
was  an  historic  person  (Ezek.  14:  14,  20;  James  5:  n), 
eminent  for  faith  and  piety.  The  trials  were  real,  the 
Satanic  influence,  the  losses,  the  complaints,  the  restoration, 
were  all  historical,  we  may  well  believe.  The  construction 
of  the  poem,  the  order  and  forms  of  the  thought  are 
wrought  out  by  the  inspired  poet,  so  as  to  show  how  human 
history  is  related  to  the  divine  purposes,  for  the  comfort 
and  instruction  of  suffering  humanity  in  all  ages. 


HEBREW    POETRY    AND   POETICAL    BOOKS.  121 

20.  Ecclesiastes. — This  is  the  seventh  book  following  the 
Psalms  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  where  it  is  called  Kohe- 
leth.  It  is  a  didactic  poem,  teaching  that  to  obey  God  is 
the  summum  bonum,  the  highest  good.  In  a  series  of  poetic 
soliloquies  the  writer  depicts  the  vanities  of  earthly  thing?, 
and  the  eternal  verities  above  the  sun.  It  represents  a  soul 
perplexed  and  tinged  with  scepticism,  in  the  spirit  of  mod- 
erate Hebrew  faith  reaching  out  after  Jehovah  and  eternal 
blessedness. 

ax.  The  author ;  according  to  the  general  belief  of  Jews 
and  Christians,  was  Solomon.  It  is  not  widely  inconsistent 
with  his  age,  knowledge,  experience  and  language.  The 
Aramaisms  are  not  numerous,  and  he  might  acquire  them 
from  familiarity  with  foreign  nations.  Some  modern 
scholars  (as  Ewald,  Delitzsch  and  Ginsburg)  suppose  the 
author  was  of  the  exilic  or  post-exilic  age,  and  personated 
Solomon.  But  Pusey,  Tayler  Lewis,  Dean  Milman  and 
others  maintain  that  it  belongs'to  the  age  of  Solomon.  It 
gives  the  impressions  of  one  who  has  had  a  long  life  of 
broad  observation  and  of  great  folly.  It  must  be  admitted 
that  the  arguments  against  its  Solomonic  authorship  are 
weighty,  but  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  later  theory 
are  also  great. 

22.  The  Song  0/ Songs. — This  is  the  Hebrew  name  of  the 
fourth  book  after  the  Psalms.  It  means  the  most  beautiful 
of  songs,  "  which  is  Solomon's."  It  appears  as  a  remark- 
able cantata  in  five  parts :  a  drama  celebrating  the  excel- 
lence and  purity  of  true  wedded  love. 

23.  The  author  was  almost  universally  conceded  to  be 
Solomon  until  the  last  century.  This  was  based  on  the  title 
to  the  book  itself,  the  evident  knowledge  of  Solomon,  his 
reign  and  royalty.     The  linguistic  forms  found  in  it  appear 

8 


122     HEBREW  POETRY  AND  POETICAL  BOOKS. 

also  in  the  song  of  Deborah,  in  Job  and  in  Amos.  Those 
who  deny  that  it  was  written  by  Solomon  rely  largely  upon 
the  internal  and  linguistic  evidences  to  support  their  view. 
The  book  illustrates  what  is  said  of  Solomon  in  i  Kings, 
4 :  33,  and  describes  a  regal  state  and  glory  which  was  true 
in  the  reign  of  Solomon. 

24.  The  structure  is  variously  defined.  Some  hold  that 
it  is  an  antiphonal  song  between  two  lovers,  attended  by  a 
chorus ;  the  Shulamite  a  shepherdess,  and  a  shepherd  her 
royal  lover;  that  it  describes  (1)  mutual  love,  (2)  lovers 
seeking  and  finding  each  other,  (3)  the  marriage,  (4)  a 
separation  and  return,  (5)  praises  of  lovers  and  love. 

25.  Interpretations  have  been  many,  chiefly  along  three 
lines:  (1)  allegorical,  full  of  fancies  of  every  sort;  (2) 
the  literal,  a  poetic  representation  of  pure  love;  (3)  the 
typical,  that  it  represents  the  Church  and  Christ  as  her 
spotless  Husband.  Whatever  may  be  the  spiritual  lessons 
that  it  illustrates,  it  graphically  shows  the  Hebrew  idea  of 
true  bridal  and  conjugal  love.  It  is  aromatic  with  the 
fragrance  of  spring  flowers,  singing  birds,  and  the  charms 
of  a  sweet  and  strong  love.  It  is  fitting  that  one  book  of 
Scriptures  should  breathe  the  joy,  peace  and  beauty  that 
spring  from  domestic  life  of  human  love,  a  symbol  and 
reflex  of  that  divine  love  Christ  has  for  His  people. 

The  prophecies,  which  are  also  poetry,  must  be  treated 
under  Prophetical  Books. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

PROPHECY   AND    PROPHETICAL   BOOKS. 

1.  The  Prophets  were  a  large  class  of  religious  teachers 
among  the  Hebrews.  Many  of  them  were  inspired  to  in- 
terpret and  declare  the  will  of  God  to  the  people.  Prophet, 
in  the  popular  sense,  means  a  person  inspired  to  fore- 
tell future  events.  This  was  not  the  chief  work  of  the  He- 
brew prophets ;  but  it  was  to  act  as  divinely  authorized 
teachers  of  religion  and  of  spiritual  truth.  It  also  desig- 
nated one  who  recorded  such  teachings  or  prophecies. 
Moses  was  a  prophet,  and  prophets  existed  from  the  earliest 
period. 

Later,  the  schools  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  sprang  up  in 
the  time  of  Samuel.  They  were  a  professional  class. 
Many  of  this  class  were  not  divinely  inspired  or  authorized, 
but  were  false  prophets  (Jer.  14:  14;  23  :  21  ;  Ezek.13: 
2;  22:28;  Micah  9:  11).  True  prophets  were  often 
called  from  outside  of  the  professional  class  to  declare  the 
word  of  the  Lord  and  to  interpret  his  dealings  with  the 
Hebrew  and  other  nations.  They  were  even  authorized  to 
denounce  the  professional  prophets  for  false  teachings. 

2.  The  Great  Work  of  the  true  prophets  may  be  divided 
into  five  historical  periods  or  crises: — (1)  To  unify  the 
nation  in  the  age  of  Samuel ;  (2)  To  suppress  Baal-worship 
and  the  worship  of  strange  gods  in  the  time  of  Elijah  and 
Elisha ;  (3)  To  teach  that  righteousness  was  required  to  re- 

(123) 


124       PROPHECY  AND  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS. 

tain  God's  favor,  under  Amos  and  the  shepherd  prophets ; 

(4)  That  Israel  was  spared  to  secure  a  holy  people  for  the 
Messiah,  as  in  the  age  of  Isaiah  and  his  contemporaries; 

(5)  That  God  wanted  reformation  of  the  heart,  and  not 
merely  of  outward  national  or  personal  manners,  as  in  the 
age  of  Jeremiah  to  Malachi.  The  nation  might  be  de- 
stroyed, but  Jehovah  still  desired  personal  holiness  and 
purity  of  heart. 

3.  Prophetical  Books. — The  great  mass  of  the  prophetic 
instructions  to  the  Hebrew  people  has  been  lost.  That 
which  has  been  preserved  may,  however,  contain  the  sub- 
stance of  the  divine  messages  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years.  The  books  which  the  Hebrews  called  the  "  Earlier 
Prophets  "  have  already  been  considered.  There  remain 
sixteen  books,  which  they  called  the  "Later  Prophets" 
(excepting  Daniel),1  and  that  are  pre-eminently  prophetical 
books.  The  prophecies  in  these  books,  except  Daniel, 
Jonah,  Haggai  and  some  of  Malachi,  are  poetry  or  poetic 
in  form.  Portions  of  them  are  among  the  finest  lyrics  in 
the  language,  as  the  prayer  of  Habakkuk,  the  Lamentations 
of  Jeremiah,  and  the  Messianic  odes  in  the  5  2d  and  53d 
chapters  of  Isaiah. 

4.  Division. — The  sixteen  prophetic  books  are  divided 
into  four  Major  or  greater,  and  twelve  Minor  or  lesser, 
prophets.  The  Major  or  greater,  were  not  so  called  from 
any  belief  that  they  were  greater  in  character  or  in  impor- 
tance, but  simply  because  the  length  of  their  recorded 
prophecies  was  greater  than  those  called  Minor  or  lesser. 

The  prophetic  books  may  also  be  grouped  in  periods,  as 
— (1)  Before  the  great  captivity,  Jonah,  Joel,  Amos,  Hosea, 

1  Daniel  was  placed  among  the  KHhubim,  or  "  Writings,"  and  in 
order  ranked  ninth  after  the  Psalms. 


PROPHECY    AND   PROPHETICAL    BOOS  125 

Micah,  Nahum,  Zephaniah,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah  and  Habak- 
kuk.  (2)  During  the  captivity,  Daniel,  Ezekiel  and  Oba- 
diah  (?).  (3)  After  the  captivity,  Haggai,  Zechariah 
and  Malachi.  It  will  be  convenient  briefly  to  notice  the 
books  in  the  order  in  which  they  are  found  in  the 
English  Bibles. 

5.  Isaiah. — The  title  means  "  Salvation  of  Jehovah." 
The  prophecies  recorded  under  his  name  rank  second  in 
quantity,  being  exceeded  only  by  those  of  Jeremiah.  The 
latter  has  about  one-tenth  more  matter  than  Isaiah. 

Author. — Jewish  and  Christian  tradition,  the  apocryphal 
Old  Testament  books,  Ecclus.  48 :  24,  25,  and  Josephus, 
say  the  book  was  by  the  prophet  Isaiah.  The  work  is  quoted 
in  the  New  Testament  as  by  Isaiah  about  120  times,  the 
quotations  being  about  equally  divided  between  the  earlier 
and  later  prophecies.  The  style  is  conceded  to  be  similar 
by  all  competent  critics  ;  technical  expressions  and  hymns 
are  common  to  both  and  peculiar.  But  Ewald  assigned  the 
book  to  seven  authors  ;  some  modern  critics  to  many  more. 
Others  say  there  were  two,  the  first  and  a  "  pseudo  "  or 
"  deutero  "  Isaiah.  Against  the  unity  of  authorship,  it  is 
asserted  that  the  writer  of  chapters  40  to  66  describes  his 
own  cities  in  ruin,  and  therefore  lived  after  the  Babylonian 
captivity,  about  150  years  after  Isaiah's  death;  that  he 
names  the  future  deliverer,  Cyrus,  and  so  wrote  post  even- 
turn  ;  that  prophets  did  not  usually  "  project  themselves 
into  a  distant  future,  filling  their  pages  with  details  of  that 
future."  This  proves  too  much.  To  say  that  Isaiah  could 
not  write  prophecy  which  would  prove  to  be  true  history,  is 
to  deny  all  prophecy.  Who  was  the  "  great  unknown?  " 
This  question  is  unsolved.  There  is  no  trace  of  him  in 
Hebrew  history  or  tradition.     The  book  is  conceded  to  be 


126       PROPHECY  AND  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS. 

Scripture.  It  is  the  nature  of  prophecy  to  look  into  the 
future  as  if  it  were  present.  Surely  the  description  of  the 
servant  of  God  who  suffers  and  dies  for  the  sins  of  his 
people  as  described  in  the  53d  chapter,  fits  no  other  per- 
son in  history  as  it  does  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  then,  not  very 
material  to  the  divine  character  of  this  prophecy  whether 
it  was  spoken  750  or  450  years  before  Christ.  Whoever 
the  author  or  authors,  it  was  inspired  of  God  and  is  of  di- 
vine authority. 

The  Structure. — It  consists  of  a  series  of  predictions 
expressed  with  an  unction,  pathos,  holy  rapture  and  poetic 
majesty  unequalled  in  literature.  The  prophecies,  which 
are  poetry,  are  connected  by  narrative  in  prose.  The  con- 
tents centre  about  three  leading  topics, — redemption  prom- 
ised, redemption  provided,  redemption  accomplished. 

6.  Jeremiah. — These  prophecies  were  spoken  by  the  son 
of  Hilkiah,  of  a  priestly  family  of  Anathoth,  a  small  town 
about  three  miles  northeast  of  Jerusalem.  His  prophecies 
extended  over  about  forty  years,  and  relate  to  the  southern 
kingdom  of  Judah  from  the  period  of  Josiah  to  Zedekiah 
(621  to  about  585  b.  a).  The  author  of  the  book  is  held 
to  be  Jeremiah  himself,  though  he  dictated  portions  of  it 
to  Baruch  the  scribe,  who  wrote  it  out.  (Jer.  36 :  4 ;  45  :  1.) 
The  last  chapter  appears  to  be  an  appendix,  probably  by 
another  prophetic  author. 

The  structure  is  simple  and  rugged.  Jeremiah  is  a  bold 
preacher  of  righteousness  to  a  sinning  people.  Some  have 
likened  him  to  Dante  proclaiming  coming  judgments,  and 
to  the  Trojan  Cassandra.  He  is  the  poet  of  desolation  and 
sorrow,  with  here  and  there  gleams  of  light  amid  the  gen- 
eral blackness  of  the  storm.  Portions  of  the  book  were 
intended  to  instruct  and  comfort  the  Jewish  captives  at 


PROPHECY   AND   PROPHETICAL   HOOKS.  127 

Babylon,  and  later  portions  were  warnings  to  foreign  na- 
tions. 

7.  Lamentations,  by  the  same  prophet,  were  called 
Echoh  ("How?")  in  Hebrew.  It  is  composed  of  five 
pathetic  elegies  lamenting  over  the  destruction  of  Judah 
and  Jerusalem  by  the  Chaldaeans.  The  five  are  parts  of 
one  great  theme.  The  first  two  poems  are  alphabetic.  They 
consist  of  twenty-two  stanzas,  each  beginning  with  a  letter 
of  the  Hebrew  alphabet.  The  third  chapter  has  sixty-six 
verses,  the  first  three  beginning  with  the  first  letter  of  the 
Hebrew  alphabet,  and  the  second  three  with  the  second 
letter,  and  so  on  to  the  end.  The  fourth  chapter  is  ar- 
ranged similar  to  the  first  and  second,  except  that  the  verses 
have  two  clauses  each. 

8.  Ezekiel. — His  name  means  "  God  strengthens."  He 
was  of  a  priestly  family,  and  a  prophet  during  the  Baby- 
lonian exile.  He  lived  in  captivity  at  Tel-Abib,  on  the 
banks  of  the  river  Chebar,  about  two  hundred  miles  north 
of  Babylon.  The  book  of  his  prophecy  is  diffuse,  artistic, 
and  abounds  in  allegory,  symbols  and  obscurity.  Its  diffi- 
culties caused  the  Jews  to  declare  that  no  one  should  read 
it  until  thirty  years  of  age.  Jerome  called  it  "an  ocean 
and  labyrinth  of  the  mysteries  of  God."  But  the  difficul- 
ties are  chiefly  those  of  exposition. 

The  methods  of  interpretation  applied  to  Ezekiel  may 
be  designated  as  four: — (1)  Allegorical,  dangerous  in  ten- 
dency; (2) historical,  essentially  destructive;  (3) symbolical, 
requires  careful  and  guarded  qualifications ;  (4)  typical,  the 
more  safe  method.1 

9.  Daniel  is  not  placed  among  the  prophetical  books 


1  See  Stearns,  Intro.  Books  of  O.  7!,  1889. 


128       PROPHECY  AND  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS. 

in  the  Hebrew  Bible,  but  with  the  Klthubim,  being  the 
ninth  book  after  the  Psalms.  Various  reasons  have  been 
offered  to  explain  this,  but  the  real  ground  is  not  known. 

Author. — The  book  itself  implies  that  it  was  written  by 
Daniel,  the  prophet  of  the  captivity.  This  is  the  testi- 
mony of  i  Mace,  i  :  54;  2 :  59,  60,  confirmed  by  the  book 
of  Baruch  and  the  references  in  the  New  Testament.  Jo- 
sephus  also  states  the  current  belief  of  his  time  that  it  was 
by  Daniel,  "one  of  the  greatest  of  the  prophets."  {Jew. 
Wars,  6:2,  1;  Antiq.,  11  :  8,  5.)  Some  modern  critics 
ascribe  it  to  a  pseudo  Daniel  of  the  Maccabaean  age.  They 
urge  that  it  was  not  among  prophetical  books ;  is  written 
partly  in  Aramaic ;  is  not  mentioned  in  Ecclus.  49,  which 
notices  some  great  prophets.  But  that  also  omits  Ezra  and 
Mordecai  and  the  twelve  Minor  prophets  (for  49  :  10  is 
regarded  as  spurious).  Many  of  the  historical  difficulties 
have  been  removed  by  late  discoveries  in  the  Euphrates 
valley.  The  objection  to  Daniel  as  the  author,  sprang  at 
first  largely  from  a  wish  to  get  rid  of  the  miracles  and 
prophecies  it  contains.  The  testimony  continues  too 
strong  for  the  severest  criticism  seriously  to  weaken.  The 
unity  of  the  book  is  generally  conceded. 

In  structure  it  is  complex,  partly  history  and  partly 
prophecy.  This  may  account  for  its  position  in  the  Hebrew 
Bible.  Chapters  2  :  4  to  7  are  in  Aramaic  ;  the  other  por- 
tions in  Hebrew.  The  introduction  and  the  Aramaic  por- 
tion are  written  in  the  third  person.  This  may  be  ac- 
counted for  by  the  change  in  the  matter  ;  the  former  is  his- 
tory, the  latter  prophetic  vision. 

In  interpreting  the  prophetical  portion  of  the  book, 
the  first  empire  is  generally  agreed  to  be  the  Babylonian, 
but  as  to  the  other  three,  some  combine  the  Medes  and 


PROPHECY    AND    PROPHETICAL    BOOKS.  129 

Persians  into  one,  while  some  divide  them.  Others  regard 
the  prophecy  as  covering  a  wide  sweep  of  the  world- 
empires  before  and  after  Christ. 

10.  The  Minor  Prophets. — These  twelve  books  are 
counted  one  in  the  Hebrew  Bible.  The  order  there  is  the 
same  as  in  English  Bibles.  The  Septuagint  changes  the  or- 
der of  the  first  six  thus,  Hosea,  Amos,  Micah,  Joel,  Oba- 
diah,  Jonah.  Among  the  twelve  are  the  earliest  and  the 
latest  of  the  prophetic  books.  They  exhibit  wide  diversi- 
ties of  style,  thought  and  illustration.  Here  is  the  uncul- 
tured herdman  Amos,  the  erratic,  passionate  Jonah,  the 
finished  and  elegant  poet  Habakkuk,  and  the  cultured  and 
graceful  Joel. 

ii. — Hosea  means  the  same  as  Jehoshua,  "salvation." 
Stanley  calls  him  the  Jeremiah  of  the  northern  kingdom  (Is- 
rael). His  prophetic  work  covered  at  least  fifty  (some  say 
seventy)  years.1  His  style  is  sententious  and  concise,  his 
language  original  and  often  quaint.  Of  the  several  modes  of 
interpretation,  there  are — (i)  The  literal  or  modified  literal, 
that  the  prophet  actually  married  a  profligate  woman,  or  one 
that  became  profligate  ;  (2)  That  it  was  a  vision  which  the 
prophet  describes;  (3)  That  typically  he  states  the  relation 
of  Israel  to  Jehovah  as  that  of  an  unfaithful  wife  to  a  hus- 
band. There  are  several  references  to  this  book  in  the  New 
Testament.  See  Matt.  2  :  15  ;  9  :  13  ;  12:7;  Rom.  9  : 
25,  26. 

12.  Joel  is  pure  Hebrew,  easy-flowing,  elegant  and  clas- 
sical in  style,  having  bold,  sublime  imagery,  vividness  and 
power  of  description,  bearing  the  impress  of  high  culture. 
All  these  point  to  an  early  period  of  the  monarchy  as  its 

1  See  Pusey,  Minor  Prophets. 


130       PROPHECY  AND  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS. 

date — not  later  than  800  B.C.  Peter  cites  a  prediction 
of  Joel  as  fulfilled  in  the  Pentecostal  revival  and  gift 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Compare  Joel  2  :  28-32  with  Acts  2  : 
16^21. 

13. — Amos  was  aherdman  of  Tekoa,  a  small  town  about 
twelve  miles  south  of  Jerusalem.  His  name  means  "  bur- 
den" or  "burdensome."  His  style  is  in  strong  contrast 
with  that  of  Joel,  and  yet  it  charms  the  reader  by  a  cer- 
tain rugged  simplicity  and  even  sublimity  and  freshness, 
with  imagery  fragrant  of  the  pasture  and  rural  scenes. 
The  date  of  the  prophecies  and  of  the  book  probably 
follows  that  of  Joel  (about  810  to  780  B.C.).  An  old  tra- 
dition, not  very  trustworthy,  declares  that  he  died  a  mar- 
tyr's death. 

14.  Obadiah. — The  smallest  of  the  prophetic  books  re- 
minds the  reader  of  the  old  feud  between  Jacob  and  Esau. 
It  is  a  sweeping  declaration  of  judgment  against  Edom  for 
its  unnatural  conduct  toward  Judah  in  its  day  of  misfortune. 
The  date  is  uncertain.  It  turns  on  vs.  11-14.  Someplace 
it  in  889-884  B.C. ;  others  606-588  B.C.  or  later.  There  is 
a  strong  resemblance  in  this  book  to  Jer.  49  :  7-21,  where 
there  is  a  similar  prophecy  against  Edom. 

15.  Jonah  was  of  Gath-hepher,  a  town  of  northern  Pal- 
estine between  Nazareth  and  Tiberias.  The  book  is  a  sim- 
ple, natural  and  graphic  story,  bearing  the  marks  of  true 
history  unless  the  reader  discards  miracles.  The  miracle 
of  the  "great  fish"  (it  does  not  say  "whale")  has  been 
made  the  butt  of  ridicule  by  sceptics  since  the  days  of 
Julian  the  Apostate.  As  a  type  of  Christ,  the  narrative  of 
Jonah  must  include  the  miracle  of  the  fish,  and  Christ  him- 
self points  to  it  as  such  a  type.  (Matt.  12  :  39-41 ;  Luke 
11  :  29-32.)    The  book  reads  like  history.     It  may  be  de- 


PROPHECY    AM)    PROPHETICAL   B00K9.  131 

nied  a  historic  character,  but  only  "  on  the  ground  that  all 
records  of  the  supernatural  are  unhistoric."  l 

1 6.  Micah  was  a  prophet  of  the  Mediterranean  plains 
near  Gath.  He  is  generally  assigned  to  a  period  between 
758  and  698  B.C.  ;  but  some,  depending  on  internal  evi- 
dence, regard  this  as  rather  too  early,  and  would  place  him 
as  contemporary  with  Isaiah.  His  style  is  bold,  energetic, 
sometimes  vehement  and  abrupt.  He  abounds  in  images, 
and  his  sudden  transitions  and  conciseness  make  his  mean- 
ing often  obscure.  He  was  counted  a  Messianic  prophet, 
and  his  predictions  are  caught  up  and  echoed  in  the  Song 
of  Zacharias  (Luke  1:72,  73),  and  by  the  chief  priests  of 
Jerusalem  (Matt.  2:5,  6). 

17.  Nahum  is  a  poetic  book  of  great  sublimity  and  with  a 
beautiful  imagery.  Says  Professor  Edwards,  "  In  grandeur 
of  style,  in  condensed  energy,  in  elevation  of  sentiment 
and  rapid  transitions,  and  in  a  certain  completeness  of  rep- 
resentation, Nahum  stands,  if  not  the  first,  yet  near  the 
first,  of  the  Hebrew  prophets."  The  writer  was  probably 
of  Galilee,  though  some  have  thought  he  was  from  the 
valley  of  the  Tigris.  He  gives  a  sublime  picture  of  the 
invasion  of  foes  and  the  desolation  of  Nineveh. 

18.  Habakkuk. — His  name  means  "  embracing."  He 
was  a  Levite,  but  from  whence  he  came  and  where  he  lived 
are  unknown.  The  theme  of  the  book  is  the  overthrow  of 
Judaea  by  the  Chaldaeans,  and  then  the  overthrow  of  the 
Chaldaeans.  The  style  is  strong  and  the  thoughts  original. 
Ewald  says  that  he  "  is  master  of  a  beautiful  style,  of  pow- 
erful description,  and  an  artistic  power  that  enlivens  and 
orders  everything  with  charming  effect."     Of  his  eloquent 

1  Prof.  Barrows,  Intro.  Study  of  the  Bible,  London,  p.  274. 


132       PROPHECY  AND  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS. 

and  sublime  prayer-song  (chapter  3),  upon  the  majesty  of 
Jehovah,  Bishop  Lowth  says :  "  This  anthem  is  unequalled 
in  majesty  and  splendor  of  language  and  imagery."  From 
this  book  Paul  cites  the  famous  text  "  the  just  shall  live  by 
his  faith"  (Hab.  2:4;  Rom.  1:17),  which  was  caught  up 
by  Luther  and  became  the  ringing  watchword  of  the  great 
Reformation. 

19. — Zephaniah,  according  to  the  heading  of  the  book, 
belonged  to  the  period  of  the  great  revival  under  Josiah, 
641-610  B.C.  It  has  been  called  the  great  judgment  hymn. 
That  marvellous  description  beginning  "The  great  day  of 
Jehovah  is  near,  .  .  .  That  day  ...  of  wrath"  (Zeph. 
1  :  14,  15),  furnished  the  keynote  to  that  sublime  Latin 
hymn  ascribed  to  Thomas  of  Celano  (1250),  Dies  tree,  dies 
ilia,  esteemed  the  grandest  hymn  of  the  middle  ages — a 
hymn  more  frequently  translated  than  any  other,  yet  never 
equalled,  and  which  brings  before  us,  with  thrilling  power, 
the  final  judgment  as  an  awful  impending  reality.1 

20.  Haggai,  a  prophet  of  the  restoration.  His  book  is 
plain  prose,  in  a  series  of  four  or  five  discourses.  It  re- 
lates to  the  repair  of  the  Temple,  1  :  1-12;  2  :  10-20;  to 
the  glory  of  the  second  temple,  2  :  1-9,  and  Zerubbabel's 
triumph  over  his  enemies,  2  :  20-23.  The  second  chapter 
contains  a  distinct  reference  to  Christ  as  the  "desire  of 
all  nations;"  or,  "the  desirable  things  of  all  nations." 
(Hag.  2:7.) 

21.  Zechariah  is  accounted  the  second  in  order  and  the 
greatest  prophet  of  the  restoration.  The  thought  is  essen- 
tially Messianic  throughout  the  book.  The  theme  is  one, 
but  under  two  (some  say  five  or  six;  heads.    The  authorship 


1  See  Schafif,  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  p.  915. 


PROPHECY  AND  PROPHETICAL  BOOKS.       133 

has  been  sharply  questioned,  some  ascribing  it  to  Jeremiah, 
because  of  the  passage  in  Matt.  27  :  9,  10;  but  lately  this 
theory  has  been  virtually  abandoned.  Others  would  sepa- 
rate the  book  into  many  sections  of  different  ages ;  but  the 
authority  and  inspiration  of  the  book  are  admitted  by  all 
reverent  scholars.  Testimony  is  strong  in  favor  of  the 
unity  of  authorship.  The  Septuagint  credits  it  to  Zechariah. 
Christ  and  the  New  Testament  writers  recognize  but  one 
author  for  it.  The  book  has  six  specific  references  to 
Christ — Zech.  3:8;  6:12;  9:9;  11:12;  12:10;  13:7. 
22.  Malachi,  meaning  "  my  messenger,"  is  the  closing 
prophet  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  book  "  is  broken  up 
into  Socratic  aphorisms,  abounds  in  ellipses,  is  crisp  and 
terse."  It  is  bold  and  denunciatory  in  its  messages,  yet 
consoles  the  believer  by  rich  Messianic  promises.  It  dis- 
tinctly foretells  that  Elijah  will  come  as  the  forerunner  of 
the  Messiah.  Should  the  forerunner  not  come,  or  fail  in 
his  mission,  the  prophet  threatens  that  Jehovah  will  come 
and  "smite  the  earth  with  a  curse."  And  thus  prophecy 
in  the  Old  Testament  closes  with  a  terrific  warning,  await- 
ing the  opening  of  the  New  Testament  with  an  angelic 
song,  the  Gloria  in  Excdsis. 


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